00:31:21 · Joshua Goodman, Joe Weisenthal, Joshua Goodman, Joe Weisenthal
[00:31:21] S5: Said that on-street containerization could take up to 150,000 parking spaces. Now, that was before we had gotten into, and that's out of 3 million total in the city. That was before we had gotten into some of the details. Once we had analyzed it much further and gone down the road on implementation, we're now looking at about a fifth of that. When we went back and did the Back to the Future of Trash report, we found that it was more like 30,000 spaces at full rollout, and it could be fewer based on the opt-ins. [00:31:49] S4: Can we just talk a little bit more about the perspective of the sanitation workers? So first of all, how many are on a truck right now? [00:31:56] S1: Two. There's two people on a truck. [00:31:58] S5: Currently. Yes. [00:31:58] S0: And it will still be two under the new- That's correct. [00:32:01] S5: Yes. [00:32:02] S0: And how does. [00:32:02] S4: Their walk me through literally what they physically do? They go and collect it, et cetera. How does it look different now or future versus now?
00:32:02 · Joe Weisenthal, Joshua Goodman, Joshua Goodman
[00:32:02] S4: Their walk me through literally what they physically do? They go and collect it, et cetera. How does it look different now or future versus now? [00:32:09] S5: Yes. So sanitation workers have an incredibly difficult job. They're out there collecting 12 to 13 tons of trash in- all weather, in all conditions. They can't say, you know, I couldn't get to it today, right? There's an expectation that it'll be gone. And about 50% of their line of duty injuries are sprains and strains from throwing bags. So we're excited to see that go away. There are about 6,500 people with the title of sanitation worker out of 10,000 people total at the department. So those are the people who are actually collecting and processing your trash. They are subject to a number of hazards on the job. One thing we've seen a big increase is being poked by needles. We assume it's from an increase in GLP-1 usage with people. [00:32:53] S1: Buying them online.
00:32:53 · Joshua Goodman, Joshua Goodman, Tracy Alloway
[00:32:53] S1: Buying them online. [00:32:54] S5: And it comes with an instruction booklet, but they don't necessarily read it because it came from an online pharmacy and whatever. And then they think, this is trash. I put it in the bag and it goes away. And so a big thing that we want people to remember, of course, is a human being handles your garbage. But the move to mechanized collection, the side-loading truck, in high density areas will make a huge difference for the backs and knees of sanitation workers. They go out, they begin their day with a roll call at their garage. I mentioned the city's divided into 59 districts. They start at one of their assigned district. They do a roll call, they get their assignment for the day. [00:33:28] S1: There's a big. [00:33:29] S5: Electronic board where they find out where they're working that day. They go out with their partner and they collect the trash. And then in many, but not all districts, they get to dump it at the transfer station on the same shift. Some districts where the routes are optimized differently, it's another shift comes in and empties the truck so that it's empty when people come back. [00:33:48] S1: In the morning. [00:33:50] S5: These are people who deal with every possible situation you can imagine. And if we can get it so that they are not lifting your garbage as much, it will. [00:33:57] S1: Make a huge difference. [00:33:58] S3: What happens to bulky waste under the new system?
00:33:58 · Tracy Alloway, Tracy Alloway, Joshua Goodman, Joshua Goodman
[00:33:58] S3: What happens to bulky waste under the new system? [00:34:01] S2: Because one of the nice things about New York City right now is, you know, you can put a couch on a curb, and sometimes people will just take it and use it on their own. But if they don't, then the trash collectors will come and they'll throw it away and you don't have to pay extra. [00:34:14] S5: To do that. [00:34:15] S1: Yeah, no change. [00:34:15] S5: If there's an item that doesn't fit in your bin, you know, a couch is a great example, just leave it next to it. A truck will still be coming down. We hope to find efficiencies at full rollout and have to run fewer of the trucks, the rear loader, the sort of traditional collection truck that can get bulky items. But that was actually one of the things we learned from Barcelona. Barcelona is often held up as the gold standard of waste management in urban environment. We talked to them at the beginning of this process and asked them quite a few questions about what worked and also what they would have done differently. And it was interesting because American urbanists will tell you. [00:34:48] S1: That Barcelona is perfect, we should just do Barcelona. [00:34:51] S5: And the Barcelona people were like, we still have a lot of issues. One of which was that they had converted their fleet too heavily to sideloaders. And then learned, well, actually, people still put a loose bag next to it once in a while. They still need the couch. And they had to go back and get a different truck. So we're making sure to keep that as part of the program.
00:34:51 · Joshua Goodman, Joe Weisenthal, Joe Weisenthal, Joshua Goodman
[00:34:51] S5: And the Barcelona people were like, we still have a lot of issues. One of which was that they had converted their fleet too heavily to sideloaders. And then learned, well, actually, people still put a loose bag next to it once in a while. They still need the couch. And they had to go back and get a different truck. So we're making sure to keep that as part of the program. [00:35:09] S4: Just out of curiosity, in this international exploration, did you ever look into Mexico City? Because I've never been to a city that's, A, more clean. And, B, you can't find a trash can for the life of you. And I'm like, where do people put their, like, you buy something from a street food vendor. [00:35:25] S0: You have this wrapper. And I'm like, I don't know where to throw it away. There's no trash cans anywhere. And yet the streets are spotless. I don't get it. You know, public space. [00:35:33] S5: Litter baskets and public space maintenance are different across the world. And we have talked to them. And, you know, we have responsibility here for the property owner to maintain the sidewalk. In Mexico City and in Tokyo, which is the other sort of famously clean streetscape city, there are community groups who are paid or tasked with maintenance. And we have that as well through the business improvement districts system. We did in 2018 conduct a one-district pilot where we tried going with the Tokyo-Mexico City model and removed every litter basket. Because people sometimes say, oh, the litter baskets, they attract the trash. [00:36:10] S1: People littered everywhere.
00:36:10 · Joshua Goodman, Joshua Goodman, Tracy Alloway, Tracy Alloway
[00:36:10] S1: People littered everywhere. [00:36:13] S5: So that said, I don't want to preclude for your future study. It is true that piles of trash attract additional trash. And when you're in a neighborhood that is not containerized and you see a pile of black bags, it is natural to think, I can put my garbage on top of this. So my hope is that after full containerization, we can reevaluate some of that further and say, OK, now that the city broadly doesn't have trash. [00:36:37] S1: Everywhere, what can we do to limit littering and public space cleanliness issues? [00:36:57] S2: This is a slightly random question, but what happened to the anti-littering campaigns of like the 80s and 90s, I guess as far back as the 70s? Because I feel like you just don't see them as much anymore. And it's not like, I don't. [00:37:10] S3: Think you can look at New York and say, mission accomplished. There's no more littering. [00:37:13] S1: I totally agree. [00:37:14] S5: I will say that I do think that there's some confirmation bias and selective memory about these because we... Ran a multi-million dollar one last year, the We Heart NYC anti-littering campaign. We ran one that was well into the six figures recently that had a picture of a finger pointing up into an NYC litter basket and said, if you see someone littering, tell them where to stick it. [00:37:36] S1: We ran a few of these. [00:37:38] S5: And the issue is, I think, probably the same one that you find across the media landscape, right? The monoculture is long over. And we try to do a tremendous amount.