New York City's waste management system is a refuse removal system primarily run by the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). The department maintains the waste collection infrastructure and hires public and private contractors who remove the city's waste. For the city's population of more than eight million, The DSNY collects approximately eleven thousand tons a day of garbage, including compostable material and recycling.
Waste management has been an issue for New York City since its New Amsterdam days. As a 1657 New Amsterdam ordinance states, "It has been found, that within this City of Amsterdam in New Netherland many burghers and inhabitants throw their rubbish, filth, ashes, dead animals and suchlike things into the public streets to the great inconvenience of the community".
Collection
Curbside pickup
DSNY provides curbside pickup of trash and recycling multiple times per week for every residential building in the city. Trash must be placed in black bags and recycling in clear or blue bags. This leads to complaints about the sidewalk space taken up by trash, especially as large residential buildings produce 'trash bag mountains' daily. Some buildings do place their garbage in special containers.
Commercial carting
Businesses are not served by the Department of Sanitation and instead are required to purchase waste collection service from a private hauler. The city's private carting industry has a long history of mob ties, with a 1996 indictment of several firms resulting in the creation of the New York City Business Integrity Commission. In 2003, commercial carting accounted for 7,248 tons of solid waste, 2,641 tons of recycling, 8,626 tons of construction and demolition waste, and 19,069 tons of clean fill per day.
Litter baskets
DSNY collects litter from litter baskets placed on street corners in commercial areas throughout the city. Misuse of the litter baskets for household or business waste carries a fine, and often when this occurs the basket is removed.
In some business improvement districts, litter baskets are handled by the district sponsor or its contractors, with many contracting this work to The Doe Fund, which employs homeless men while providing housing, educational opportunities, counseling, and career training.
Street cleaning
In the 1890s, New York City implemented a street cleaning program that picked up after the large amounts of litter in the streets, as well as cleaning up after the city's horse-powered transportation. In 1895, New York City became the first U.S. city with public-sector garbage management. Sanitation engineer George E. Waring Jr. organized the "white wings" to clean the streets.
DSNY's street sweepers collect more than 100 tons of dust, dirt, and litter from the streets each day. Commercial streets which do not permit overnight parking are swept at night or in the early morning, while on residential streets car owners must move their cars once or twice a week for alternate-side parking to permit each side of the street to be swept.
Property owners are required to clean sidewalks as well as streets within 18 inches of the curb.
As of 2020, excessive littering remains an issue in all boroughs of NYC, especially Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens.
Recycling
New York City began mandatory curbside recycling in the late 1980s. The primary recycling facility is the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility in Brooklyn.
Container deposit
New York City is a hotbed of canning activity largely due to the city's high population density mixed with New York State's container deposit laws. Canning remains a contentious issue in NYC with the canners often facing pushback from the city government, the New York City Department of Sanitation, and other recycling collection companies. Sure We Can, a redemption center co-founded by nun Ana Martinez de Luco, is the only canner friendly redemption center in the city, providing lockers and communal space for the canners to sort their collections of redeemables.
Paper
Roughly half of the paper and cardboard collected by DSNY is placed on barges at the West 59th Street Marine Transfer Station and taken to a Pratt Industries paper mill on Staten Island where it is recycled into new paper products.