New York City waste management system

Waste management has been an issue for New York City since its New Amsterdam days.[5] “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" reads a New Amsterdam ordinance dated February 20, 1657.[6][5] In the 18th and 19th centuries, New York residents were encouraged to throw their trash into the East River to shore up low-lying sections of Lower Manhattan.[7] In the 1950s and 60s, city planner Robert Moses encouraged residents to dump their trash to fill numerous swamps and rivers around the city to make them more hospitable to development for parkland, fairgrounds, and airports.[7]

At the height of its use, Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill was the largest dump in the world, sprawling across 2,200 acres. Fresh Kills first opened as a temporary landfill and closed in 2001.[7] Starting in the late 20th century, NYC is making an effort to turn old landfill sites into parks. Notable examples of this are Freshkills Park in Staten Island[8] and Shirley Chisholm State Park in Brooklyn.[9] Most of NYC's waste ends up in landfills outside of the city.[10] In 2017, the DSNY disposed of 3.2 million tons of refuse to facilities outside of New York City.[11]

In 1885, New York City opened the nation's first trash incinerator on Governor's Island.[7] All the way up to the 1960s, 11 unfiltered trash incinerators operated in NYC, burning garbage without regulation.[7]

In the late 1800s, 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 horse-powered transportation that transported the city.[12] In 1895, New York City became the first U.S. city with public-sector garbage management.[13]

New York City began recycling in the late 1980s.[14]

New York City is a hotbed of canning activity largely due to the city's high population density mixed with New York state's current deposit laws.[15] 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.[16] 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.[17]