Trash Day in New York
Jan 4-Jan 9, 2022
Fall in love with city skylines. Ignore the trash on the sidewalks.
It started early into the trip; my partner and I noticed numerous piles of trash on the sidewalks, “Tomorrow must be trash day,” we both commented several times the first day of our trip.
We live in a small southern U.S. town where all people know to drag their trashcans to the end of their driveway for pick-up once a week. It only made sense that NYC would leave piles of trash out instead of a single trashcan.
Returning to our hotel room, we watched as all the closing businesses brought rolling containers full of trash bags to the sidewalks. “Look at all these people. Peopleing,” I said. “New York in action.”
The next day, we began our adventure into the city — the first full day of NYC. The first comment we made to each other was about the trashbags still sitting on the sidewalks.
“Maybe they were just preparing for garbage day…tomorrow,” I snarked.
“Yeah, you can’t imagine them doing a trash route midday traffic in manhattan,” Matt snarked back.
Our New York City trip lasted 5 days, Jan. 4- Jan. 9, and each day, we found ourselves having this conversation multiple times.
Sure, it’s a big city and the population versus density would always create a trash problem, but during my visit, I saw some policies in action that only created more issues that resulted in dirtier streets.
Many places did not allow eating or drinking inside
Going to New York City in January of 2022, we knew that covid restrictions would be in place and our visit would be impacted by the ongoing global pandemic.
Many places did not allow people to eat or drink inside. While this makes sense in theory, in practice, it led to many meals eaten on the sidewalk; and while public trash cans were already overflowing… where else is there to dispose of trash except in the streets? Matt and I did not throw our trash on the streets, but I could easily see a more accustomed person to this lifestyle losing interest in keeping things clean when the trash cans are full every day and there are already bags of trash lying around.
We visited many museums and theaters during our trip, and not to our surprise they did not allow food or water to be consumed inside either.
[Again] in theory, this makes sense. Masks up at all times. Not allowing the passing of germs while people are eating and drinking inside. But in practice it never made sense. It really just releases the responsibility from each business, and passes all burden to the city government of NYC.
For example, the Museum of Natural Science has a cafe on every floor where food and beverages could be purchased, and a larger cafeteria in the basement for more dining options. Every cafe was closed, and the only place to buy or consume food or water was in the cafeteria, essentially herding everyone into one area to remove their masks and consume food and water.
Very happy Times Square was clean
