As The Sanitation Department Gets Rid Of Trash Baskets, Find Out How Many Are Left In Your Neighborhood

Over the past year, over a thousand litter baskets have been removed from New York City streets because of "chronic misuse," meaning people are using them for household trash, reports the NY Times. While it seems counterintuitive to remove trash cans when there is too much trash piling up in them, NYC's Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia defends the practice, saying that it actually creates cleaner streets.

One area that's been hit the hardest is Harlem, where the Department of Sanitation removed 223 trashcans, including all the trashcans from West 136th to West 140th between Edgecombe and 8th Avenues, PIX 11 reported earlier this year. This action seems to have made the trash problem worse in the area, as trash is getting tossed where the baskets used to be, drawing roaches and rats, reports the Times. Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President, has sent letters and emails to DSNY to protest the trash can removal.

A spokesperson for the DSNY told Gothamist in an email:

Litter baskets are for pedestrian litter, and are placed in busy commercial and pedestrian-heavy areas, not in primarily residential areas. The Department’s cleaning office routinely reviews litter basket usage and placement around the city, and will remove baskets that are in areas that do not meet the commercial criteria, or baskets that are chronically misused. On the other hand, we will also add baskets to areas that have become more commercial in nature. Baskets may be removed because an area is overwhelmingly residential, and/or the baskets are subject to chronic misuse. Misused baskets are an eyesore and cause quality of life issues. Removing baskets is just one of the measures we use to ensure clean streets and sidewalks, even though the measure may seem counterintuitive at first.

Sanitation officials told the Times that there are still more baskets in Harlem than any other neighborhood: 1,339 in Harlem compared to 779 in the Upper West Side and 719 in the Upper East Side.

The DSNY has data on the location of every litter basket in the city (most recently updated on August, 17, 2018) but it doesn't break it down by neighborhood. Instead, it breaks down the city into 59 districts. Here is a list of the DSNY districts, the neighborhoods included in them, and the number of litter baskets per district. Manhattan has 9,697 baskets, followed by Brooklyn at 6,180, Queens at 4,030, the Bronx at 2,895 and Staten Island with 951.

The data shows slightly different numbers than the DSNY claims in the Times article. The districts that include Harlem and East Harlem have 1,005 baskets, the Upper West Side's district has 1,007, Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island's district has 1,154, and Midtown from 14th Street to 59th Street has 1,185. Districts with the least amount of baskets include Hunt's Point (121) Canarise/Flatbush/Mill Basin (190), Elmhurst/Corona (156), and Arden Heights/Bay Terrace/Great Kills/Tottenville (185).

Andres O'Hara (Source DSNY Litter Basket Inventory, DSNY Districts)