There are pigeons resting and scavenging on its peak. The heap of food scraps we are looking at, which has cartoon-like steam rising off the top, is massive, but only constitutes a tiny fraction of what it could be. One-third of the residential trash - some 4,000 tons daily - that New Yorkers throw away is food or yard waste that could be diverted from methane-emitting landfills. “ Tons,” everyone responds in unison, and we all laugh at my inability to grasp orders of magnitude. ![]() First, we watch as the trucks line up to be weighed, since customers pay by weight to dump. This is the sorting phase of the process, and no fewer than six Waste Management employees have been assembled to take me around. The company’s Varick plant processes a third of Brooklyn’s total trash, and it’s also where 200 tons of the city’s food waste goes every day, piled up into a mountain, including all of the Smart Bin waste outside of Staten Island. The facility, a cavernous warehouse that smells like sulfur, is run by Waste Management, a privately operated company with a very straightforward name that is the biggest landfill operator in North America. This is the dump zone, and I can smell it before I see it. “It’s not safe.” I agree, noticing that no one else is on foot, and try to shadow his truck, like I’m also a truck, as he rolls into the back of the building. “You can’t hang out here,” a man tells me from the window of his truck as I approach the entrance. There’s a long way to go.Ī few days later, I’m in Williamsburg at a transfer station on Varick Street, trying not to get hit by a truck. It’s already late and I’ve decided to pace myself. The sanitation workers will continue their shift into the early morning, but we agree I have gotten the gist. ![]() and about 12 blocks and a similar number of bins away from where we started, Innone offers to drop me at the subway. And even though “COMPOST” is written on the front of the Smart Bins, our journey will not include any compost.īy 1 a.m. It’s a process that will ultimately include three different facilities, two public agencies, two private companies, and a lot of anxious public-relations employees. The Smart Bins being emptied are one piece of the city’s much-heralded plan to bring composting to all five boroughs, and I’m here to follow these precious, semi-frozen bundles to see where they end up. I’m not allowed to ride in the actual truck, so Innone, a quick talker who has worked with DSNY for 11 years, has agreed to drive me around a collection route in Astoria as a kind of compost babysitter. (The compost recently switched over to an overnight shift, which has the bonus of less traffic.) “Fast,” I tell him. Or maybe it just feels that way because it’s midnight, the streets are virtually empty, and I’m wired as we follow them in a small car driven by DSNY Superintendent Anthony Innone. The whole thing looks like a well-rehearsed heist. He closes the door brusquely, hops back into the truck, and it rumbles on to the next. His partner wordlessly replaces him in front of the bin, bending down as he shakes out a new plastic liner to place inside. ![]() A door at the front of the bin springs open with a click and he removes a large bag of food scraps, turning around to toss it into the truck’s hopper. One sanitation worker unlocks the ruddy orange container with a swipe of his hand, using a keycard tucked into his glove. Emptying a Smart Bin takes about 45 seconds.
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