GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN’T DEPOSIT YOUR GARBAGE HERE, THIS IS A TRASH CAN! New York City Removes Trash Cans on the Upper West Side:

via westsiderag:

What happened to the baskets? Did they get removed in anticipation of some windy weather? Surely the Department of Sanitation [DSNY] would soon restore the baskets – thereby easing the overflow trash – she thought.

A neighbor who shared her concerns called 311 and was told that the baskets had been removed because people leaving Riverside Park were putting their trash in them. “You can’t make this up,” says Melissa.

Nope.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, DSNY says having fewer trash baskets increases area cleanliness. “For some reason, when there’s a garbage can on a corner, it attracts litter,” DSNY Community Liaison Nick Circharo told West Side Rag. “The corner without a basket is the cleanest corner. If you take away the baskets, people will take their garbage elsewhere.”

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Circharo says the basket reductions, “Are not a money-saving thing, but a cleanliness-increasing thing,” noting that DSNY crews empty baskets on West End Avenue every day, twice a day, except for Sundays when there is no pickup.

Found via John Podhoretz, who tweets, “In my neighborhood, the Department of Sanitation is removing garbage cans because apparently they…produce garbage. The people who run this city are demented.”

h/t ED