The city collects about 2,000 tons of recycling each day, the majority being cardboard. New Yorkers are most familiar with recycling-after all, it’s required if you use DSNY services. Recycling’s been mandatory in NYC since 1989 so naturally, we have adjusted. Below, you’ll find answers to the most common questions about waste removal. We’re taking a cue from the DSNY this month by putting together a guide to recycling, composting and other ways to get rid of junk here in NYC. Next, reuse should be the following step.” “We encourage residents to first reduce what they use, if possible. “W e urge New Yorkers to reduce, reuse and recycle, in that order,” said Department of Sanitation Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani. That’s a lot of trash we could be keeping out of landfills! It’s clear that NYC officials know they have a garbage problem on their hands but a lot of the pick-up needs to fall to New Yorkers in how they get rid of their stuff. It turns out that 68% of what we throw away actually belongs in a curbside recycling or organics bin, according to a Department of Sanitation Waste Characterization Study from 2017. One of the biggest pushes this year has been the introduction of curbside compost pick-up. The past year has been full of headlines marking the numerous ways the city’s leaders are attacking the trash problem head-on, from a new garbage bin program and a newly reinstated Alternate Side Parking schedule for sweeping to a new bill that would require city agencies to identify where they could place public restrooms in each of NYC’s zip codes to help cut down on public urination and the like. NYC was tagged as the second dirtiest city behind Rome, Italy in our latest Time Out Index -a poll of 27,000 city-dwellers from Melbourne to Madrid, Chicago to Copenhagen and Tel Aviv to Tokyo. Recently though, the filth hit a new level.

It’s so prevalent that some artists have even used it to create sculptures! It’s just part of the makeup of the city like pigeons or mystery puddles. Whether we like it or not, garbage is so much a part of NYC living. Sometimes it’s worn-out furniture with questionable stains or possible bed bugs sitting at the curb. You see it on the sidewalks waiting to be picked up in mountains of faux mint-scented garbage bags or flattened and scattered like coffee cups, cigarette butts and paper plates from dollar slice* spots, trampled on by thousands of feet. Actually, it has tons of trash every year.Īccording to the Mayor’s office, NYC produces more than 14 million tons of trash annually. In a city of 8.5 million, New York City sure has a ton of trash.

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