NYC Moves Toward Saying Goodbye to Mountains of Plastic Trash Bags

The Brian Lehrer Show

WNYC

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4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this month, all businesses in the city had to change how they put trash out to be collected - from plastic bags piled up on the street to inside containers with a tight lid. Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, reports on how the change is going, breaks news about residential trash containerization, and what might come next in the city's battle with its considerable rat population.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Brian Laird on WNYC. It's been one week now since New York City's new rules for putting out the trash took effect, containers, not bags. How's it going for your building or at your house?
0:22.4	And do you think it's working or will work to keep the city looking better and more rat-free?
0:28.2	212-433 WNYC. Give us a call as we're about to speak to the New York City Sanitation Commissioner.
0:35.8	Nearly every council member we spoke to during our 51 council
0:40.1	members in 52 weeks series mentioned trash and rats as the cause for the most number of calls
0:49.6	from constituents or among the top few reasons that constituents contacted their office, trash and rats.
0:56.4	Tourists remark on the shockingly filthy nature of our streets compared to other places that
1:02.1	they've been. We hear your calls whenever the subject comes up on the show. So I feel confident
1:07.9	when I say New Yorkers are tired of living amongst garbage in the way that we have.
1:13.3	So we have this container's mandate now.
1:15.4	And there's more to this policy coming that I think we're about to hear unveiled right now by Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tish, who does join us now.
1:24.7	Commissioner, welcome back to WNYC.
1:27.2	Thanks for having me, Brian. And I know you have an
1:29.8	announcement to make regarding new plans to deal with residential trash. You want to start there?
1:34.8	We sure do. So as you know, and as you said, we have been working on containerization of trash in the
1:40.8	city for about the last year, and we have made a tremendous amount of progress.
1:45.6	Last week, we began requiring all businesses to put their trash in containers. And we have
1:50.8	previously announced a similar upcoming requirement for lower density buildings of one to nine units
1:56.8	to put their trash in wheelie bins that starts in the fall.
2:07.1	But when people think about containerization of waste in New York City, often what they're thinking about is those European style on-street containers to address the big mountains of
2:13.8	trash in front of a large buildings.
2:16.6	That has historically been the white whale of containerization in New York City.
	...

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