NYC’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) requires all residential buildings with 1-9 units to purchase standard 2-wheeled bins to set out trash for collection, while buildings with 10-30 units will have the option to use these bins or street containers.  Nearly 20% of 1-9 unit buildings citywide have storefronts on the ground floor, so the bins...

Food waste is the part of garbage that makes it disgusting. When sealed in plastic bags with other trash, food waste putrefies, releasing foul odors and garbage juice, attracting rodents and roaches. When it winds up in landfills, food waste creates leachate and methane that pollute the land, waterways and air. But when food waste...

Vital City commissioned an article by Clare Miflin and Benjamin Miller on how to best integrate waste containerization into New York City’s streetscapes so it can bring many more benefits than just hiding the trash...

We are in support of NYC’s plans to containerize waste but recommend adjustments for large buildings and walk-ups to better integrate waste containerization into streetscapes and improve labor conditions for building porters. See our recommendations on how to reduce the street space taken up and eliminate permanent bins on sidewalks for small buildings and large buildings...

We helped the NYT journalists to understand and visualize DSNY’s proposals for containerizing waste, and were quoted in their article: Clare Miflin, an architect and the executive director of the Center for Zero Waste Design, argues that a different scheme would better address these harder cases. In denser parts of the city, she suggests all small and midsize...

NYC Department of Sanitation is moving forward on containerization, a strategy we brought to the attention of city agencies in the collaborative development of the Zero Waste Design Guidelines in 2017 and pushed to the forefront with our Put Waste to Work campaign and coalition building for the incoming Adams administration. But DSNY’s approach misses...