as iconic as the Empire Statelos bagels, Central Park or the logo I ❤ NYalthough infinitely more unpleasant, garbage and rats are part of the landscape, wildlife, New York experience and history. For some time the municipal authorities have sought formulas to remove that emblematic place in the heritage, the imaginary and the reality of the metropolis, with little success to date. litter and rodents, in an alliance as demonic as it is vigorous, they continue to win for the moment, and by a landslide. Y it remains to be seen that it will end in a different way the commitment of the current mayor, Eric Adamsand the person in charge of its Cleaning Department, jessica table, but the efforts are clearly redoubled. Has your time come?
It’s hard to anticipate for rats, that rare species of ‘newyorkers’ de pura cepa, who always demonstrate their mastery in the art of survival and adaptation. Like humans, they were affected by the pandemic, and between confinements and restaurant closures, these beings used to local movements they expanded their territories in search of food. At the same time, the city got into a kind of ‘war budget’ and the scissors also went through the cleaning services.
The subsequent opening of terraceswhich in most cases they have come to stayalso created a new real estate paradise for the ‘ratuna’ population, which transformed ground floors and hollows into nest and home. And although it cannot be determined if the rats have increased in number, the incontestable thing is that they are seen more. It is ratified from those same restaurant terraces, in a walk through practically any place, with the corpses of the run over, that are becoming a more frequent sight for cyclists, or knowing that the numbers of complaint calls municipal services have risen 70% in two years.
garbage mountains
About the mountains of garbage bags on the sidewalks, the inexhaustible buffet for rats, is another New York classic behind which political and economic factors beat and a history of inertia. It was in 1968 when a public cleaning workers strike it marked the turning point that would develop the current system. The plastics industry took the opportunity to give away hundreds of thousands of bags and by 1971 the city officially banished the metallic cubesgiving birth to the landscape of those mountain ranges that they hurt sight and smell and often make the smallest sidewalks difficult to pass.
The numbers of complaint calls to municipal services due to the presence of rodents have risen 70% in two years
Garbage collection logistics have not changed in those six decades, even as the city was adding population and this, creating more waste: 14 million tons a year, 375 more daily than five years ago. In this system, municipal services are exclusively in charge of collecting garbage from residential and institutional buildings, They do only three times a week. Meanwhile, nine dozen private businesses (of which in the 90s an effort was made to eradicate the controls of the mafia) they share the business of removing commercial waste, including restaurants.
The plans
New York has long destined millions of dollars to try to bring about change. Now, for Adams the fight is almost somewhat personal. In nearly a hundred times In recent months, he has spoken in his press conferences about rats (and has also been in the news for appealing two fines that he received after detecting the presence of rodents in a house he owns in Brooklyn, in whose eradication attempts he had spent $7,000 out of pocket).
The mayor’s signature has been stamped on four legislative initiatives. A fundamental has launched a pilot program to install containers in the five neighborhoods, but the general implementation faces challenges, ranging from the different size of the streets to the assured war with the owners of private vehicles, that they would lose space to park in a city that, when it designed the famous manhattan griddid not foresee alleys to, oh surprise, squeeze the most out of the real estate space.
The mayor has launched an initiative for the containers to return to the sidewalks of the streets in the five neighborhoods of the city
In addition, a new plan for the commercial garbage that would divide the city into 20 zones, give businesses three options of private companies to contract with, and reduce truck routes and the hours they spend on the roads, polluting and contributing to traffic jams.
Another change will take effect in April. Since then it will be delayed from 4pm to 8pm the time at which residential buildings can take out their garbage bags, trying to shorten the excessive time that garbage spends on the street, sometimes up to 14 hours. Rats may lose early offerbut, as the experts remember, they do not know about schedules and are mostly at night, and they will still have easy access to their feast. In addition, the new rules have exceptions, including allowing businesses to take out their trash an hour before closing, whenever that is.
effect blows
The Adams Administration has also given knockouts in their fight. In December they generated enormous attention when they posted a job offer online looking for a “director of rodent mitigation”a charge already popularly known as “the czar of rats”.
To qualify for salary between $120,000 and $170,000 all that was needed, according to the highly commented ad (which had to be withdrawn due to the avalanche of responses), experience in urban planning, project management or government and, “most importantly, the drive the determination and the killer instinct to combat the real enemy: the relentless rat population of New York City. The candidate had to be “hugely motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty” and it was convenient for him to have “what it takes to achieve the impossible.”
“Cunning, voracious, and prolific, New York City rats are legendary for their talents for survivalbut they don’t run this city, we do,” the ad read.
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The phrase, which was also pronounced at a press conference by the person in charge of the Cleaning Department (who, as soon as she took office, spoke with the mayor of Barcelona to study the city’s garbage collection system) was such a success that it was stamped on t-shirts. They were being sold online for $48 and there aren’t any left to buy.
It was a success story. But the garbage is still in the streets and the rats, roaming freely.
