On the other hand, it's a reminder of how car-brained we are. You can fit a dumpster in the space that a single SUV takes up, but even in NYC that driver's convenience is more important than a basic amenity like waste management.
On the other hand, a New Yorker without a car, who walks around piles of leaking garbage bags on the sidewalk, is ecstatic about replacing parking spots with garbage containers.
Fortunately, it's a good thing to realize that each neighborhood is different. The busy neighborhoods with the most trash (e.g. much of Manhattan) have the smallest number of car-owning residents because it's a lot of tall buildings, while the neighborhoods with the most car-owning residents (e.g. much of Queens) generate the least trash, because it's a lot of houses.
This doesn't necessarily preclude them, but a thing to note about underground utilization in NYC: the city has absolutely no idea what's beneath its surface, in part due to centuries of development with nonexistent or inaccurate recordkeeping.
Burying trash receptacles rather than reusing parking spaces may be cheaper, but it isn't guaranteed. It may also vary by borough (Queens in particular has less underground infrastructure).
Yes we absolutely need those. But they will still reduce parking spaces. This is an unavoidable fight, and one that vast majority of non-far-outer-borough New Yorkers who don't drive need to win.
My anecdotal experience is that as it relates to manhattan, a huge portion of street parking is used by commuters (even from other parts of NYC) a resident parking plus metered solution would free up a ton of space.
The reason why NYC has such a rat epidemic is because they literally throw their trash bags on the street. Which leads to some getting ripped open and leaving food for pests.
New Yorkers are so precious about this. I've heard pages and pages of excuses why trash containers can't possibly work in New York City, despite literally every other city in the developed world-- including all the others in the United States-- somehow managing to master this arcane technology.
Nobody's saying they can't work, they're just saying it's an expensive transformation that involves tradeoffs.
Which is in large part because of the way NYC was laid out originally -- no back alleys where garbage could be stored and collected, in order to reduce areas for potential crime.
If it were as simple as you imply, it would have been done already. Guess what -- it's actually pretty complex, but containerization is a major focus of the current administration. Nobody's being "precious" about anything -- there's no need to be insulting.
(Once you go outside the canals it's wheelie bins, but they are not considered suitable for use in the very centre, for reasons I was never super-clear on)
The Back Bay section of Boston begs to differ. Even with alleyways between the streets, still no trash cans, just plastic bags (that get chewed through pretty much uniformly).
Trash cans aren't viable because of shortcomings in our infrastructure; we don't have alleyways. Large apartment buildings use dumpsters or basement trash rooms, but you can't exactly cart those out on to the sidewalk. Street side pickup is the only option barring rebuilding the city, and a garbage man isn't picking up an entire trash can. Having a truck pick up the garbage can would also encounter issues with space and time. That's how we landed on our current... well... "solution".
Also trash cans aren't foolproof. I've encountered more than a few of the critters digging through our refuse, along with a trash panda once or twice. The bags aren't rat proof either; it's not that they rip, but rather the rats chew through.
Complicated problem with a lot of legacy infrastructure debt.
This is true and also a simplification: NYC required steel trashcans for street pickup for decades, until getting rid of them for performance reasons (I believe the argument was that they made garbage pickup slower).
The city is now bringing back the trashcan requirement, but plastic this time. It remains to be seen how effective that will be (since rats will happily chew through heavy plastic to get to food).
Edit: I realized that I've also simplified: the new can requirement is for commercial pickups only. That's the majority of rat-inducing foot waste, but it's still just a partial solution.
You forgot to mention the union of garbage men that fights against any kind of gains of efficiency. You could have easy-open small dumpsters that are found all over Europe, but that would take work away from a couple guys throwing bags of garbage into the truck.
when walking through some neighborhoods (parts of park slope) i saw almost exclusively trash cans at every residence. At any rate, to say its impossible to implement trash cans just sounds nuts. I'm sure it truly is complicated, but not viable? I don't think so.
The first time I visited NYC, I was appalled that so many people just casually live in the stink of street trash 24/7. They just don't see it as an issue, strangely
The first time I visited NYC was for a job interview. I wanted to live in an urban, walkable city with plenty of cultural and business opportunities. The trash situation was a primary factor in me choosing another city and another job.
I get that many many people in NYC don't see this as an issue, or don't see this as a solvable problem. As an outsider it is absolutely disgusting, and forever lowered my opinion of the city.
~20 years ago I visited Toronto for a Debian conference in the middle of an outdoor workers strike. I wanted to visit Chinatown, but the heaps of trash bags that hadn't been collected left a stench that I couldn't stomach.
> The reason why NYC has such a rat epidemic is because they literally throw their trash bags on the street.
NYC has huge underground tunnel networks for subway and other things. The only other city in the US with a comparably large rat problem is Chicago, which also has substantial tunneling. This gives rats a huge place to live. While trash is a contributing factor the huge amount of old tunnels is the main reason it's so hard to control.
The city can do all the control it wants in the parks but it isn't going to put much of a dent in the underground systems.
It's not really a solution, because even then no one's perfect about using them, but it can help. Rats will chew right through a plastic trash can if they're desperate, and steel dumpsters eventually rust out and create nice little rat doors.
Almost ever major city has some level of rat problem, with underground transit and other man-made tunnels I believe the problem is essentially impossible to solve. It's all about management.
I walked past a giant trash bin in Singapore one night and there were literally 10+ rats shuffling around inside it and I could hear it shaking and banging. Singapore has no litter problem (but the heat and humidity probably makes the trash more delicious smelling) but the rats can find their way into anything...
There's always a cost and a tradeoff. The real question might not be choosing rats or no rats, but choosing between rats or parking. As far as I understand the proposed solution, the containerization proposed would take up somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 parking spots in NYC.
"A female rat typically births six litters a year consisting of up to 12 rat pups, although 5-10 pups are more common. Rats reach sexual maturity after nine weeks, meaning that a population can swell from two rats to around 1,250 in one year, with the potential to grow exponentially."[1]
Unless you kill all of them at once and set up some sort of impossibly perfect rat detection system to kill the ones in every building and trash can, how is killing something like on the order of 10 female-year progeny even news? It's like putting a piece of masking tape over a water main break. You have to reduce their food, their ability to reproduce, etc.
The original NYC "Director of Rodent Mitigation" Rat Czar job posting was hilarious, but completely serious. The municipal government took down the job posting once it was filled, but copies are still floating around for posterity[1].
As much as it pained me, the only news (sic) outlet that I could find displaying a full copy of the actual text of the job posting in its full glory was The Daily Mail.
It's only semi-effective, you need to get rats to drink the substance, and it makes them less fertile for about 100 days. Could work along with other methods, but not a silver bullet.
Sure, although the article talks about monoxide…thus my confusion. It’s also a much less pleasant way to go: this is an “as I understand it” to be clear; carbon monoxide binds to your hemoglobin better than oxygen, but your bloodstream doesn’t build up carbon dioxide (which is what causes that panicky “I need a breath” feeling). Adding CO2 accelerates that feeling…
Readit News
This is an understatement. A New Yorker with a car that doesn't/can't pay the monthly indoor garage fees will fight tooth and nail for street parking.
Fortunately, it's a good thing to realize that each neighborhood is different. The busy neighborhoods with the most trash (e.g. much of Manhattan) have the smallest number of car-owning residents because it's a lot of tall buildings, while the neighborhoods with the most car-owning residents (e.g. much of Queens) generate the least trash, because it's a lot of houses.
[1] https://www.villiger.com/en/products#underground-systems
Burying trash receptacles rather than reusing parking spaces may be cheaper, but it isn't guaranteed. It may also vary by borough (Queens in particular has less underground infrastructure).
this is an oxymoron
we just borrow other peoples' cars / use taxis
The reason why NYC has such a rat epidemic is because they literally throw their trash bags on the street. Which leads to some getting ripped open and leaving food for pests.
Which is in large part because of the way NYC was laid out originally -- no back alleys where garbage could be stored and collected, in order to reduce areas for potential crime.
If it were as simple as you imply, it would have been done already. Guess what -- it's actually pretty complex, but containerization is a major focus of the current administration. Nobody's being "precious" about anything -- there's no need to be insulting.
(Once you go outside the canals it's wheelie bins, but they are not considered suitable for use in the very centre, for reasons I was never super-clear on)
Also trash cans aren't foolproof. I've encountered more than a few of the critters digging through our refuse, along with a trash panda once or twice. The bags aren't rat proof either; it's not that they rip, but rather the rats chew through.
Complicated problem with a lot of legacy infrastructure debt.
The city is now bringing back the trashcan requirement, but plastic this time. It remains to be seen how effective that will be (since rats will happily chew through heavy plastic to get to food).
Edit: I realized that I've also simplified: the new can requirement is for commercial pickups only. That's the majority of rat-inducing foot waste, but it's still just a partial solution.
https://wikiwaste.org.uk/Wheelie_Bin
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/in...
But the car lobby, despite being a clear minority, is really strong. It sucks.
I get that many many people in NYC don't see this as an issue, or don't see this as a solvable problem. As an outsider it is absolutely disgusting, and forever lowered my opinion of the city.
NYC has huge underground tunnel networks for subway and other things. The only other city in the US with a comparably large rat problem is Chicago, which also has substantial tunneling. This gives rats a huge place to live. While trash is a contributing factor the huge amount of old tunnels is the main reason it's so hard to control.
The city can do all the control it wants in the parks but it isn't going to put much of a dent in the underground systems.
Almost ever major city has some level of rat problem, with underground transit and other man-made tunnels I believe the problem is essentially impossible to solve. It's all about management.
Unless you kill all of them at once and set up some sort of impossibly perfect rat detection system to kill the ones in every building and trash can, how is killing something like on the order of 10 female-year progeny even news? It's like putting a piece of masking tape over a water main break. You have to reduce their food, their ability to reproduce, etc.
https://www.rentokil.com/us/about/blog/all-industries/quickl...
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11493659/Seeking-le...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63837306
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/14/1170120247/nyc-rat-czar-kathl...
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NYC's new ferret-killing weapon is wildly successful – for now
https://time.com/6264623/rat-birth-control-poison-contrapest...