The public system handles waste from residences and government buildings as well as some non-profits. The amount is so large that the city manages it through two separate systems, one public and one private. Today, New York City generates 14 million tonnes of trash each year. Photograph: New York Public Libraries/Open Street Map/Max Galka Two waste systems – one public, one private Much of the city’s land today, including some of its priciest neighbourhoods, are literally built on garbage.Ī 1660 map of lower Manhattan overlaid on a current map shows how much of the land is manmade, built on top of the City’s own garbage.Ī map of 1660s Manhattan overlaid on modern New York shows how much of the city’s land is manmade – largely by ruble and other debris dumped in the water. However, in what was surely its most enduring waste management initiative, New York City used some of its garbage (mostly ash, rubble and other debris) to create artificial land, thereby increasing its own size. At one point, as much as 80% of New York’s garbage ended up out at sea. Through most of its history until the mid-1900s, New York’s primary method for disposing of its waste was simply to dump it into the ocean. As described in a 1657 ordinance, when New York was still called New Amsterdam, “… many burghers and inhabitants throw their rubbish, filth, ashes, dead animals and suchlike things into the public streets to the great inconvenience of the community.” A snapshot from two centuries later depicts a city overrun with horse manure, posing a health hazard for residents. Waste management problems are nothing new for New York. A brief history of New York’s waste management To deal with these challenges, the city relies on a complex waste-management ecosystem encompassing two city agencies, three modes of transport (trucks, trains and barges), 1,668 city collection trucks, an additional 248 private waste hauling companies, and a diverse network of temporary and permanent facilities extending halfway around the world. And New York is located smack in the centre of the Northeast megalopolis, a giant urban expanse where available land for disposing of garbage is in short supply. Not only that, New York is also America’s densest city: its narrow, traffic jam med streets make collecting all that garbage a logistical Gordian knot.
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