New York (AFP) – The mountains of black garbage bags that invade the sidewalks of New York to feast on rats will soon be history. The city has begun introducing a bin system to clean the streets and starve its army of rodents.
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It is the “garbage revolution”, according to local authorities. Since the beginning of March, more than 200,000 food businesses are required to deposit the more than 3,000 million tons of waste they produce annually in containers.
Residents have until 2026 to adapt to the type of containers, which, inspired by cities such as Paris, Madrid or Buenos Aires, the city has begun to implement in a pilot program in Harlem, northern Manhattan.
With 150,000 parking spaces allocated to containers throughout the city, protests by residents who fear losing space for their cars may be diluted by the results.
“It's a change,” says Ron James, a Harlem resident. “Before, when I arrived at night, I often had to walk along the road to avoid the rats that were on the sidewalk. Now I barely see them,” he told AFP.
In addition to seeing fewer rodents, what Dominican Maxwell Rodríguez is most grateful for is that his community has stopped receiving fines because “there are no longer trails of garbage on the street.”
The containers deter scavengers who tear open the bags to remove cans or bottles to sell, he says.
The city of 8.5 million inhabitants that never sleeps and the millions of tourists who visit it annually produces about 20 million tons of waste daily, more than half from businesses, according to the city council.
43 km of garbage
In a straight line, the waste would extend along 43 kilometers, 8 kilometers more than the perimeter of Manhattan, the city hall illustrates.
Businesses have their own private collection system, while the almost 10,000 members of the city's Sanitary Department are in charge of residential, school and hospital garbage.
In one of the most densely populated cities on the planet, in particular Manhattan with more than 1.7 million inhabitants, most of whom live in high-rise buildings with no space between them, placing large containers capable of storing the result of the consumer frenzy of its inhabitants – accustomed to using and throwing away – seems a complex equation.
Dealing with this huge amount of waste is “a big problem,” acknowledges Columbia University professor Steven Cohen.
Practically, the only place to place containers is on sidewalks, taking away space for pedestrians, or on roadways, further complicating traffic. In some blocks, more than 25% of the sidewalks will be occupied by containersthe authorities predict.
The city has to introduce adapted trucks to lift the containers and empty them. Until now the collection is done manually, bag by bag.
These workers “deserve a solution that protects their bodies” from injuries, just as all New Yorkers “deserve a solution that cleans their streets,” advocates Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Little recycling
Since the closure of the world's largest landfill in Staten Island in 2001, all of the city's trash has ended up in a network of waste-to-energy facilities and landfills in other states hundreds of miles away, such as North Carolina. South.
“No one wants to be near a garbage processing station,” justifies Cohen.
Meanwhile, this expert in environmental sustainability policies hopes for a paradigm shift to turn garbage into the “new mining” and a source of energy with the help of artificial intelligence. So far “less than 10%” is recycled, he says.
With less than 3% of organic waste recycled, the city has also begun to implement a plan to equip with special compost containers, which will be mandatory starting next year.
“All food waste will be recycled, either to compost or to an anaerobic digester, which converts it to methane or nitrogen fertilizer,” Cohen says.
“It takes time for people to learn other ways of doing things,” but even if it takes time, “I think it will be achieved,” he says optimistically.
“Any change this big, with a city this size, will take several years before it is really seen,” he warns.
