People Wait For Tomorrow's UWS Apple Store Opening
Giuliani Livid Over Bringing 9/11 Trials to NYC
FIT Students Busted For Drug Dealing Get Probation
Oreo The Dog Is Dead, Blame Game Is Not
Pregnant Woman And Two Men Shot In Clinton Hill Drive-By
If you've ever tossed your junk mail into a sidewalk trash can, you better think again. The City Council is expected to approve a bill doubling fines for "illegal dumping" - and sanitation officials will be allowed to fine people if "identifying information" is found.
So, if you dump a catalog and other junk into the trash, you could be be fined $100-300 for the first violation, $250-500 for the second violation, and $350-400 for a third violation! And if you didn't illegally dump the items, you would still have to explain why it wasn't you. But if sanitation officials start trying to tape up torn up mail to figure out who threw it away... Our guess is that they'll crack down on people who dump bags of garbage in the corner trash can, versus a stray piece of mail.
The Post notes that a 2005 city study showed that 20% of all trash in public litter baskets were from residential or commercial sources. Queens Community Board 5 district manager Gary Giordano blamed the epidemic on landlords, "it's not a reflection on people behaving badly. Too many tenants live above stores, and the landlord does not give them any place to store their garbage."
The Department of Sanitation gave out over 2500 tickets to illegal dumpers. And last month, the DOS impounded 12 vehicles involved in illegal dumping. Most of the cars were dumping construction debris.
Photograph by Last Nights Garbage on Flickr
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Our guess is that they'll crack down on people who dump bags of garbage in the corner trash can, versus a stray piece of mail.
A couple of years ago I got one of these fines. Apparantly I was walking out of my apartment, grabbed my mail, and threw away a piece of junk mail, or an envelope, in a regular trash bin. A few weeks later I got a fine in the mail which I fought and amazingly won but I did wonder, had I crumpled the junk mail/envelope up and thrown it on the ground, if any of this would have happened?
I use sidewalk trash cans now and again, when I have several bags of trash and it's not a pickup day. There's really no good option. Either you leave it on the sidewalk for a couple days, to the detriment of passerby and shopowners, or you leave it in your apartment, which is unsanitary.
What's a person to do?
I can't blame the landlord, either. Many people live above shops. The city needs to get creative, somehow, someway. This really shouldn't be an issue...
"20% of all trash in public litter baskets were from residential or commercial sources."
What's the other 80%!? That's the percentile we should be worried about. Most of the trash in the litter baskets was from them!
ian
guest @ 4:04 - I had the same question!!
To the above guest. Yes you are breaking the law, and also being an incredible pig. So it's unsanitary to leave it in your apartment, but it's ok to leave it out in the public square?! WHere it will attract rats and get ripped open and spew garbage all over? The law is aimed exactly at people like you. And beware of people like me (who live near the public spaces ruined by people like you) who occasionally open the bags, and then go dump them on your doorstep!
There's a special place in hell for your type.
so, wait, if i throw an envelope bearing my name on it and the city goes thru my trash (that's a hoot) and finds my name on that envelope i will have to explain why i threw my trash in a city trash can. or is envelope throwing-away now illegal?
i think we need to focus our resources on more prudent issues.
--
you should be recycling your junk mail.
Why would anyone in their right mind throw documents that identify you ina public garbage can? Aren't you just ASKING for identity theft or worse???
Go to a office supply store, buy a shredder and I gurantee you'll toss garbage out less frequently. Contact every company you get bills from and go paperless.
Kill 2 birds with one stone: less garbage and you save a few trees.
Why would anyone want to dump their junk mail in a public trash can? You're just begging for identity theft.
So if technically we can't throw even one piece of "personal" trash in a public trash can, what exactly can we put in there?
They were doing this sort of thing at my upstate New York college over a decade ago. The town instituted a system where you paid three dollars for a tag that entitled you to put one thirty gallon trash barrel out at the curb. When the trash collectors emptied the barrel they took the tag. As poor students living off campus we recycled every thing we could and compacted our trash by jumping in the barrel. Some people tried to dump their trash in the university's dumpsters and were fined. If they didn't pay the fines they didn't get their diploma. I have been an avid recycler ever since.
fools! you all should have cross cut shredders. not only do they prevent against identity thieves and annoying civil servants with ticket machines, they are a lot of fun to use. i get joy out of my shredder when junk mail comes. JOY.
Does an unwanted Container Store postcard "identify" me any more than, say, the phone book does?
you clowns complaining about this should read comments 7 (pik) & 8 (guest)
"What's the other 80%!? That's the percentile we should be worried about. Most of the trash in the litter baskets was from them!"
Correct. However, that's the trash that is meant to be in the public bins. If people are sticking their key food bags full of their kitchen and bathroom trash in the public ones, there's no room for the candy wrapper, tissue, plastic cup and straw, or whatever else constitute trash while you're on the go.
"what exactly can we put in there?"
See above.
Junk mail and catalogues and thank you gifts for donating $10 one time don't belong in the public bins. It's impossible to get these companies to stop the madness of millions of mailings. Does anyone have methods that work?
Why would anyone in their right mind throw documents that identify you ina public garbage can? Aren't you just ASKING for identity theft or worse???
Yeah, they're going to get all my information from the upcoming movies at the Film Forum.
OMG! It's about time they enforced this one. I regularly see not residential, but commercial people putting their trash bags in public cans. It's really unbelievable. They'll happily fill an entire can in under a minute leaving passersby to balance their garbage on top of theirs which inevitably leads to it blowing off and down the street.
[5]
Yeah, hey, I'm [2]. I don't put in on the street. I'm saying that's the next best option to stuffing it into a public trash can, which I do from time to time (And what the article was about).
Plenty of people do put it on the street and I agree that's piggish.
Number 2: Putting your household trash in a public trash can on the street IS PIGGISH. See (17) for the reason why. Don't try to wiggle out of it. You are going to hell.
OK then, From now on, I'll make it a point erase my name, & address from the mail before I chuck it into a trashcan ! Stupid bills form some of the dumbest folks city government has ! Concentrate on real issues instead of stupidity like this ! Posted by; "Still Not Amused"
send the junk mail,shredded, back to the sender in the envelope that they supply. in large numbers, it will stop them.
Great idea #[21] . I'll try it . Posted by; "STill Not Amused"
http://lastnightsgarbage.com – a photoblog documenting garbage on the streets of NYC.