FILE PHOTO BY
TEQUILA MINSKY
More and more bags of trash are turning Lower Manhattan into a veritable “wasteland.”
BID offers tips for slashing the trash
BY GABE HERMAN
Lower Manhattan’s residential
population has nearly tripled
since 9/11, which means a lot
of growth but also a problem: more
garbage to deal with.
The Alliance for Downtown
New York released a guide in early
March for how residents and building
managers can reduce waste,
including the garbage left out on
streets.
“The increasing amount of
residential waste on our narrow
sidewalks,” the guide notes, “has
emerged as a top quality of life concern.”
The Downtown Alliance is a
business improvement district, or
BID. It has a 60-person sanitation
team that bags 1,500 tons of trash
and collects 250 tons of recycled
objects annually. But while BID
employees can empty street trash
cans, the BID is not allowed to
handle residential waste. That job
is reserved for the city’s Department
of Sanitation.
“This is one of the fastest growing
neighborhoods in the city,” said
Jessica Lappin, the president of the
Downtown Alliance, in a statement.
“We are releasing this guide
to try and change behavior, identify
best practices and reduce waste.”
There are now more than 62,000
residents in Lower Manhattan. The
guide was made with input from
residents, building managers, property
owners, consultants and city
agencies.
The guide notes that residents
can cut down on waste by recycling,
which residents are doing at just a
21 percent rate citywide, according
to the Department of Sanitation.
Recycling includes composting
organic items and donating clothes
and textiles. People should also recycle
e-waste, such as computers
and cell phones, which is illegal
to put in the garbage in New York
State.
The guide adds that buildings
can use mechanical balers to compact
their recyclables, making them
more manageable by taking up less
space.
Without a baler, a large apartment
building might produce 52
bags of garbage that take up 130
square feet, for example. But with a
baler, that amount would turn into
four stacks of four bales and take
up just 16 square feet.
An option for bigger buildings is
Roll-on Roll-off compactor containers,
which are self-contained and
reduce the volume of waste. These
are picked up by D.O.S. on request
and eliminate the need to leave garbage
bags out on the sidewalk.
FILE PHOTO BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Sidewalk space for pedestrians is being
squeezed by the reams of refuse.
The guide also made policy recommendations
for D.O.S. These
include shorter collection windows
and more frequent pickups, to reduce
the amount of garbage each
time and lessen how long garbage
sits out on sidewalks. And the
guide also recommends that D.O.S.
use real-time collection alerts for
building managers, so garbage can
be brought out at the best time and
thus doesn’t need to sit on the sidewalk.
The Downtown Alliance will host
several waste-related events this
spring, including a D.O.S. information
session that was on March 25
on the agency’s Zero Waste programs
for residential buildings, and
an e-waste collection on June 9.
Several local politicians endorsed
the Lower Manhattan-based BID’s
new guide in statements, including
Councilmember Margaret Chin,
state Senator Brian Kavanagh and
Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou.
Community Board 1 Chairperson
Anthony Notaro said in a statement,
“C.B. 1 has long advocated
for improved quality of life in our
district and lauds the Alliance for
this step in addressing this problem
which affects us all. We look
forward to working with all stakeholders
and city agencies to take
this guide and go further in getting
positive results.”
8 April 18 - May 1, 2019 DEX Schneps Media