From CBS News

NYC Residents Frustrated By Delayed Trash Collection

10 Days After The Storm, Rats Are Still Having A Field Day

January 5, 2011 10:36 PM



Garbage piles up on the sidewalk on East 58th Street between First Avenue and Sutton Place on Manhattan’s East Side. (Credit: Susan Richard/1010 WINS)


NEW YORK (CBS 2) — If you’ve walked or driven on many streets in New York City, you know that mountains of snow have been replaced by piles of garbage.

As CBS 2′s John Metaxas found out on Wednesday while paroling the stinky streets inside the Mobile 2 Unit, the situation is still pretty bad, a full 10 days after the blizzard hit.

“Williamsburg has been forgotten – it’s a land of garbage,” property manager Larry Glick said. “I manage nine buildings in Williamsburg, and all of my buildings have garbage. It’s ridiculous.”

Glick isn’t alone, either. There are plenty of folks steamed about the massive piles of garbage they’ve had on their streets for days.

On block after block, residents look at hundreds of trash bags at a time, piled high and stretching for yards.

“It’s really bad. All the rats come out, big, giant rats here at night,” Domingo Colon said. “You could see them running all over the place.”

Several Williamsburg residents said they’re holding Mayor Michael Bloomberg accountable.

“Look at this, all the garbage everywhere,” one resident said. “He’s not doing anything for us, nothing at all.”

“The mayor should stop hiding and come out to pick up the garbage,” resident Ray Acosta said.

In Manhattan, some of the piles were even taller – some nearly 7 feet in height! It made for quite a view for people trying to enjoy their coffee at a French bistro.

“Well, the coffee was good, but I kept my back to the view,” said Louis Zamora of the Upper West Side.

Massive piles of trash are not the norm everywhere, though. Several blocks have had their trash collected, but it all depends on where you are.

“My block’s fine, I haven’t seen any problem,” one resident said. “I’ve seen some large stacks of garbage bags, but I don’t see them sticking around too long.”

“On the West Side, it seems to be okay,” resident John Jorgensen said. “But when you look at everyone else, friends in Brooklyn, Bay Ridge, where I grew up, it’s a disaster.”

The Department of Sanitation told CBS 2 that crews are making steady progress in reducing the backlogged trash, with nearly 40,000 tons collected on Monday and Tuesday. It said it expects to have all trash collected by the end of the week.

It's very nice, of course, to be able to identify a culprit, but the storm of 10 days ago has in fact very little if anything to do with the problem. It is very simple: NYC (and other metropolitan areas -- cf. e.g. today's article on Detroit that I posted) are out of cash, and they simply cut services in response.

The same is true over here in Europe. We could read during the last month how the airports in Northern Europe were overwhelmed by snow. Many flights were delayed, many more were canceled altogether.

Yet, the answer is once again simple. It has snowed in other years also. The new problem is that the governments, and in some cases private companies to whom services were outsourced, simply cut their services with the results that we see.

There were articles recently about Berlin being "snowed in." If you read the small print, you'll notice that the articles tell you that no snow plowing services are available. The inhabitants of the city are requested to clean the snow in front of their properties by themselves.

I recently visited Erlangen and Nuremberg. Same story there. There were about 20 cm of snow on the roads, and the cars tried to maneuver through the snow as best they could. The roads were not plowed at all.

New York City should learn from Naples, Italy. If the city government isn't able to provide garbage collection, the mafia will gladly take that job over for them.