Despite the fancy ideas about the city’s economic and political power moving towards Brooklyn, we still have to put up with a lot of Manhattan’s garbage, which is especially clear if you wind up in Williasmburg on weekends evenings. A group of concerned citizens have announced they’ve had enough of this shit and had a protest today asking Manhattan to keep their trash to themselves. And also to stop dumping their garbage in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.
OK, so this isn’t actually the internecine warfare between boroughs that’s been prophesied. Instead, today’s rally in Williamsburg by O.U.T.R.A.G.E (Organization United for Trash Reduction & Garbage Equity), reported by Bedford + Bowery, was about the fact that Williamsburg and Greenpoint have a whopping 19 garbage dumps between them. Manhattan though, has zero, which as you might imagine, annoys Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents.
So, OUTRAGE and City Council member Antonio Reynoso got together to tell the City Council to get their shit together and open the three waste transfer stations that are supposed to go up in Manhattan, so that huge numbers of garbage trucks don’t keep driving through Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Of course, given that construction on the Manhattan transfer stations is years behind schedule and that Manhattan is too precious for garbage, we can expect the stations to be done around the time the Atlantic Yards apartments are done (i.e., never). Does that mean it’s up to Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents to just head across the bridge and dump their garbage in Manhattan? We won’t say the answer is yes, but we also won’t say the answer isn’t no.
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it would help if there were more garbage cans than the bunch around north 7th and bedford. north brooklyn is a garbage can desert.
HELLO Antonio Reynoso and City Council!!! This is great, but I couldn't agree more with msk. There's obviously a real trash problem in Williamsburg. There's trash everywhere on the sidewalks and there are NO curbside trashcans to be found. I have to walk a number of blocks from my apartment just to throw away a tiny poop bag when walking my dogs. There are planters along Wythe filled with garbage, and again, no trashcan in sight. Residences are desperate for trashcans. It's discusting. What can be done here?