Garbage Boss Answers Trash Questions From Twitter

I'm Ed Grayson, New York City Sanitation Commissioner.

Today, I'll be answering your questions from Twitter.

This is Trash Support.

V69 Radio asks,

what's the craziest thing you've ever found in the trash?

The most interesting thing that I ever removed

from a cleanup site, was a prosthetic leg.

When we were cleaning up the aftermath

of the New York City ball drop here

for New Year's Eve.

So I always wondered how did that person get home?

They clearly made it in okay.

Must have been a good party night.

Sometimes you'll see what one would call maybe

bedroom paraphernalia inside the hopper of the truck,

and it always does make you do that wonder.

But other than that,

everything's usually cut and dry.

Rosiepozi asks,

So New York was built on garbage?

Sorta.

Not the whole thing, I mean, it's an island.

We're really talking about the borough, Manhattan

for the most part.

Believe it or not, The Battery.

A whole part like on the southern tip of Manhattan,

that was literally built on using fill.

Some of it was garbage, some was earth fill,

but in the end of the day, that is landfill.

So yes, parts of New York City were in fact

terraformed using garbage.

Antoniusgarc writes,

you ever just watch the robot arm of a garbage truck

hoist your refuse into the trash trunk and think,

what a time to be alive?

All the time my friend. All the time.

Actually though,

there are some really cool technologies on garbage trucks.

This is one of our front end loaders.

Now this guy, he's primarily used at some of

our transfer stations,

and we use it all the time

when we're doing debris removal.

And when this arm is up in the air,

everybody's on high alert

because this thing probably weighs

I don't know, about 6,000 pounds.

And then it holds, oh, I don't know

three yards of material.

So let's add another three tons.

So any time this thing's swinging around,

you got almost 10 tons of material

possibly above your head.

So you're gonna be looking at that

and it is a thing of wonder.

So here's an iconic New York City collection truck.

This thing's fantastic.

Right here in the back,

what you can get caught up and mesmerized by,

is that nice sweeper action.

The men and women are loadin' into the back of that thing,

and then they pull the handles,

and it is really a ballet of sights and smells.

The compactor on this will gladly eat

just about anything you put in it.

When we send out our metal trucks,

they will crush a washer, dryer, hot water heater.

They'll crush just about anything.

Mr. Lovenstein,

Hi, my girlfriend broke up with me while

I was standing next to a no dumping sign,

can I sue her?

I don't know if that's exactly illegal dumping

that they were talking about.

Now, most times when you see no dumping,

or illegal dumping signs out

that's because the location that's there,

they've had a notorious bad actor come by

quite some time and illegally dumped

construction material or other materials

because they don't want to bring it

to where it's supposed to go.

And I wanna say this out loud now,

if you are illegal dumping anywhere, stop doing that!

It's so easy to do the right thing with garbage.

It's literally the easiest thing to do,

to just follow the local ordinances and get rid of it.

So please stop illegal dumping.

And please, if you're listening,

give Mr. Lovenstein another chance.

LAR65 writes,

how does one properly dispose of a knife?

Real question.

Seems like tossing in the garbage is likely a hazard

for someone in waste disposal.

Thank you for caring.

We love you!

That's fantastic!

If it's all metal, it's a recyclable product.

But that doesn't mean you can't do something.

Perhaps you could take like a piece of plastic film,

tape up where the blade is,

and make sure that we're really not

gonna get stuck.

Because if we don't know that it's in there,

that could come out and hurt us.

So thank you for thinking of us.

Definitely try to protect the blade.

But a hundred percent metal knife

is clearly a recyclable object.

Jeff Alldridge writes,

New York City is an amazing city,

the infrastructure, the history,

but why, why why do they still

put trash on the streets like it's 1890?

I couldn't agree with you more,

it is an amazing city,

and the infrastructure, and the history.

But there you go, those are two to the reason.

A lot of the buildings are built to not do that.

We don't have a lot of alleyways in New York City.

We don't have a lot of buildings

and building spaces that have a dedicated

refuse and recycling room.

And we have a lot of people.

And we have the charm of the city,

and we have a lot of subterranean infrastructure,

but we're changing, we're evolving the entire time.

We have recently embarked on,

at least in New York City,

a new pilot proposal called Clean Curbs

where we are gonna start installing corral areas

in residential and commercial areas.

Normally we do from the curb,

through the parking lane

into the street where the truck is.

This is going to be having the material

in a sealed container,

probably ergonomic design,

more than likely aesthetically beautiful,

much better than looking at a bunch

of black bags on the floor.

And then we're gonna service from there,

where we're gonna change possibly

how much garbage you see.

But just remember,

not seeing it doesn't mean it's not there.

So what we still want to focus on is

let's get the garbage generation

and all that to be lower than it is.

And that'll even make it look more

like the city that you want.

Miss Leah H asks,

I didn't know how to dispose of my bacon grease

so I panicked and made a batch of gravy instead. LOL.

Well, Miss Leah H, bacon and then gravy made from bacon,

we may be soulmates.

You did two good things there.

Number one, you didn't pour that grease down the drain.

And believe me, everybody in

the sewage treatment plant appreciates that.

One of the ways that you can totally get rid

of bacon grease is pour it into a cup,

put it in the freezer, turn it back into a solid,

and then just throw it out.

Jacob Meschke asks,

why is New York City sanitation department

the world's largest when New York isn't even close

to the largest city in the world.

So are there bigger cities?

Sure.

Are there places more population?

Sure.

Do they host an entire municipal workforce

that is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week

to meet the changing needs of the city that never sleeps

and it's 8.8 million people?

No, they don't.

So we are in charge of the refuse, recycling,

and snow removal, all street cleaning,

all special event cleaning,

all emergency debris management.

We have a pretty robust workload.

We have a really committed city to making sure

that New York stays the Gotham of the free world.

And we can keep you all healthy, safe and clean.

Next it's Timothy De La G.

Does anyone happen to know how much it would cost

to rent a garbage truck for the day?

One thing I can tell you, garbage trucks are for rent.

Not New York City's garbage trucks.

But from municipal and heavy duty equipment supply place,

you can rent a garbage truck.

Right now in New York City,

our average, you know, iconic,

white garbage truck that you see going on

house to house, curb to curb,

it's a little over $250,000 per truck

because it's got the highest level of technology,

we use renewable diesel.

We have a lot of things built in there

to make sure that we're one of the most

sustainable fleets across the country.

But I can tell you this much,

it's gonna cost you a lot for a garbage truck.

I'd say, you may wanna let

the professionals handle that one.

Machine Gun Kelly asks,

where does all the New York city trash go

after trucks pick it up?

I'm worried.

Where does it go?

It goes to one of our many transfer stations

where from there it gets processed, sorted,

and then taken to a final destination.

In New York City we host about

five different transfer stations.

Four by barge.

One by rail.

And we have a myriad of recycling contract vendors

where we bring the recyclable materials.

From there, it makes it sorting process,

and then moves on to either landfill,

waste energy plant, or proper recycling

for beneficial reuse.

Next up Akilah obviously,

can I ask something?

How are we supposed to be throwing batteries away?

It all depends on where you live.

You should really check your local ordinances

because they may have a different waste management plan.

But if you're in New York right now

and you have let's say small disposal alkaline batteries,

'cause there's no mercury in them,

you can actually put them out in the trash.

Certain batteries like let's say automotive batteries,

here in New York,

they have to go back to wherever you bought that.

So if it's a retailer that sells an automotive battery,

they have to take it back

and then they'll properly recycle it.

Some of the lithium ion batteries

and you know the more rechargeable ones,

they can be pretty dangerous

and we want 'em a safe handled.

Also, you can go to like the New York City website,

NYC for globe slash sanitation.

And we have this great portal where we tell you

how do I dispose of it.

And you can find out all the different ways

that you can dispose of not only batteries,

but a bunch of other stuff

that people have those lingering questions on.

Think shiv,

why does NYC sanitation only pick up

recyclable material once a week?

If they increased it, I would recycle more.

Hashtag just sayin'.

It comes down to trying to effectively

and efficiently route throughout the entire city.

We know pretty much on average

how much recycling is gonna be out on every block face,

and we use a lot of data and trend analysis

to know exactly how many trucks are on.

In the city with 8.8 million people though,

we are trying to route efficiently,

make sure that we're getting out there,

hitting every community board fairly and equitably,

and giving everybody the same opportunity to recycle.

Us trying to get more opportunity for each resident,

that's one of the long term goals.

Tristan convert asks, how does recycling actually work?

What do you think?

I think that the big cornerstone of recycling,

it makes us conscious about how we're behaving.

We go out every day and we pick up, you know,

a thousand tons of paper in New York City

and we bring that back and that's going to a paper mill,

and that mixed paper is getting re-pulped,

re-manufactured, and we're making new things.

We're making things like pizza boxes,

we're making things like recycled paper.

More, and more, and more,

you're seeing sustainable ways that we can do

beneficial reuse for some of the things

that are totally consumables.

Metal recycling for example,

you know, all those cans and all the the bulk metal,

that's gonna be sorted by metal type,

and re-smelted back into things that make new things.

That's the ultimate goal.

One of the ideas that we have to hold true is that

recycling is not a bad thing.

If we can keep it outta the landfill

while we're working on the next way to find ways

to make better products,

have more sustainable packaging to begin with,

that's the real answer.

Pujey Vixen writes,

what do landfills do with garbage?

What do landfills do with garbage?

They hold it for us!

Usually modern day land filling involves

high tech design landfill,

with industrial and environmental protection base layers

underneath, silt layers, drainage runoff caps,

all kinds of seals,

and you know subterranean infrastructure

so that everything's done in

an environmentally sustainable way.

And then as it biodegrades,

you're building up methane that methane is gonna be

pumped out and put to beneficial use, usually as energy.

And then all along the way what you're gonna do,

is you're gonna be capping at different intervals.

So there'll be an active bank

where the garbage is being dumped,

and then they'll keep moving the herd around

to try to level out the playing field

until it runs outta room.

And then people say, well, then what happens then?

What you're gonna do then is,

you're gonna seal up the landfill,

and you're gonna monitor that

for anywhere from 30 plus years,

and then usually what happens is,

that's when you could start looking

to use that land again for something other than

being a waste disposal site.

Yalla Wael asks, where will the trash go

when all the landfills are full?

Great question because it hits on.

Why does everybody think zero waste?

Reuse and recycling.

Some of the greatest time of actual individual recycling

and recapture rate,

during the world war I, world war II efforts.

When we were literally trying to get back all the metal

and you know, our grandparents, and great parent

grandparents would tell us all the stories

about how they were saving everything,

and bringing in all the tin cans from

the local neighborhood,

because they really thought they had to get all

these materials back in so that they could,

you know, preserve our way of life.

Well, guess what folks?

We need to preserve our way of life right now.

What are we gonna do when the landfills run out?

Exactly!

We're gonna have all this garbage and no place to bring it.

That's why trying to reduce consumption,

learn everything we can do to be living a recyclable life,

finding beneficial reuse for these products,

and more importantly, thinking.

So where does it go?

I think that's entirely up to us.

Let's work on that together.

Shabazz jab says,

I feel like it's trash day every day in New York City.

Like how does everybody have this much garbage?

That's what I'm saying!

But the reality of it is,

is that every year we're doing on the residential side,

a little over 3 million tons of weight, of material.

Every day is trash day because every single person

is consuming something,

and whether you think about it or not,

you have created your own personal piece

of the waste stream every single day.

Can we do stuff that'll make that different?

Absolutely.

Maybe we don't have to buy as much,

maybe not throw out half the strawberries

because you didn't get to them, for the smoothie.

Think about those things, you can consume less,

you can generate less waste,

and then maybe every day won't feel like garbage day.

Dorky mork writes,

What is the waste segregation?

It's just another word for sorting.

So what does that mean?

A lot of places are gonna ask you

to source separate your material.

We do it here in New York City.

We're asking all of the residents

to sort separate their paper, and their MGP,

and in a handful of community boards here,

we're asking 'em to separate their organic waste

before they put it out so that we can come

and properly delineate it,

so we can take it to the respective stream.

JerzDevl2000 asks,

will composting ever work in New York?

Absolutely!

It works everywhere.

The question is, will we do enough to make it work?

Can we get it scalable?

And I have to tell you, we're on our way there.

We have to do this incredible thing as a city

and try to remind ourselves of why we're doing it.

'Cause what we're gonna do there is gonna turn

into nutrient dense compost.

We're gonna take all that food waste,

and we're gonna segregate it,

we're gonna put it into places where it can

become nutrient dense compost,

because that doesn't have to go to a landfill.

It's completely wasting all of that beautiful energy

that happens as it breaks down.

Will composting work?

Yes.

It's gonna take people like you who care.

It's gonna take people in the positions

that make those decisions on a municipal level,

in the government level

to give you the access to those

programs and the education.

But can we do it?

Absolutely!

Great question.

All right, that's it.

I hope you learned something and you had fun.

Until next time.