New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats' (opens in new tab)

NY serves a rat banquet on the regular and pikachu-faces at the amount of rats that attend.

> most of the street space is taken up by free car storage.

'Subsidised' I think is the more correct term here.

How often is garbage day?

Also a bit wild to me that there's not like a communal dumpster.

Some population dense cities also do underground dumpsters, has that been floated?

Where do you store full trash bags in between pickups?

Depositing trash bags on the street is legal?

For real? I thought that was a movie thing. Then again I though steam release manholes was a movie thing too...

Well, they find the space to store their trash right now. So they definitely have enough space. The amount of trash would presumably roughly be the same before and after this change.

Eg they could sacrifice some street parking spots for the bins.

They could even charge the bins the same amount of money they charge for street parking (and fold these costs into the costs for trash disposal they charge trash producers).

I moved back to the south after living out west for 20 years and it is insane the amount of trash dropped by trash workers while they are dumping bins. Part of it is cultural in that trash is literally piled at the street in bins of varying condition vs out west where you know if it doesn't fit in your 90 gal bin it ain't getting picked up by the robot arm.

I've heard that it was that it was because it would remove parking space.

But if what you are saying is true, that's what you get for not allowing multi-concern unions. Our union branch that take care of trash collection workers is also responsible for municipal cleaning workers, as well as dump workers: making the job worse for cleaning and dump workers is just not something the union would push for.

Where would the dumpsters go? Serious question, the impression I get is that there is no room in many places in the city.

That is at odds with the fact the article says they are using bins and picking them up 6 days a week, I don't see any union complaint here?

I thought the problem with it was the lack of space.

> It's a solution to unemployment.

No, it's not. Just because a union opposes something doesn't mean it would cause unemployment.

It absolutely is a problem to be dealt with. I understand what you are implying but it actually is a problem

Is there a source on this? This is the second of two conspiracy theories I've heard, the other being that Reagan is somehow responsible for getting rid of the communal dumpsters that are claimed to have once existed.

That's a sign the city has useless excess population.

Most of HN has seen San Francisco. I doubt they'd look down too much.

>>Even that doesn't solve it because the truck is too powerful for the bin. Over time the lid breaks apart from the grabbing and flicking motion.

I feel like you and I live on a different planet. Here in the UK we have those wheelie bins, they get collected using an automated dumpster truck that tips them inside itself, and I'm yet to hear about one of these braking - they are made out of proper thick plastic. Unless by "over time" you mean like 20+ years?

https://www.wheeliebins.co.uk/blogs/news/everything-you-want...

Nowhere in the US can be really. It's not as diverse culturally as "Europe" but it's more diverse than most countries by a lot.

This just in: huge country has a pluralistic cultural identity

Why?

Yeah how American is hip hop anyway?

Native New Yorker now living in the real America vouching for the accuracy of this comment.

The majority of the US shops at WalMart. New York City doesn't even have one.

Interesting. I'd make a guess. In a cat friendly city like Istanbul you'd see cats freely and safely venturing everywhere. Rats would have no chances say in a cafe where a couple cats are sunbathing. Where is in cat unfriendly cities like a typical American city the cats aren't present on the streets, probably because this is where they get caught by Animal Control, etc., and they are more confined to some back alleys, empty lots, etc. And the rats problem for example in NYC is a street problem, i.e. where the trash is. And for example here in Bay Area the several colonies of feral cats that i know about aren't in populated areas where they could have been impactful upon street rat/mice population, instead these colonies are pushed out onto the edges of wildlife areas (where they still do useful things like protecting the birds nests/eggs from rats, etc., yet it woudln't really affect rats in the populated areas)

I believe Istanbul has over a million cats.

Anectodal but my cat brought home at least a dozen full grown rats in her lifetime. Sometimes afterwards she got sick, but only for 1-2 days. I don‘t know how many rats she just devoured before i could throw them in the thrash.

That's like saying the Midwest has a squirrel problem

It comes and goes depending on construction:

- https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/north-beach-rats-may-...

- https://hoodline.com/2015/10/rise-in-rat-sightings-reported-...

- https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/j2n2ch/absent...

I had some come inside due to that last one but I didn't let them last long lol

Also don't have a stray cat problem....

Ive seens rats running between trash, kearny/washington streets

I saw plenty of birds in Istanbul, and the rest of Turkey.

That's generally better for rats, is it not? Year-round availability of food, with the downside of more endemic disease.

I hope the recent congestion charge can slowly change the culture towards market pricing for parking spots, too.

And I hope they make the congestion charge more dynamic. Here in Singapore where we had congestion charging even long before London, we have some electric gizmos that measure congestion and adjust the charge dynamically. Basically, if traffic slows down, they hike the charge. If traffic flows smoothly enough, they lower the charge.

If only they could train rats to steal cars, pack them full of trash, and drive them out to the suburbs.

You're likely underestimating what rats can and will chew through to get a bite to eat.

> someone else should

Isn't that kinda what you're suggesting here? Most piles of trash aren't caused by homeless, its residents, so why should they need to be responsible? Residents could just buy their own cans as its their own problem

The homeless aren't exactly the best workforce. For many, there's a reason they are homeless despite plenty of support systems that helps people become more 'homeful'.

Similar, but generally less so, for some of the unemployed.

If you want to 'mobilize' people, just advertise jobs normally and use a normal hiring process. One that should, of course, be open to currently homeless or unemployed.

For your proposal, compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000

if it costs $0.50 to raise one rat, then the fee for killing one can be $0.05. storing them somewhere, feeding them,etc.. surely costs some amount. if people are just throwing stuff rats can eat, then nothing is new, that's what's happening today.

only if the bots use poison. impact-based methods at worst would harm the feet of pedestrians, but the public would need to create accounts, receive payment,etc.. so tracking them down and arresting them would be trivial.

Imagine kids on their switches hunting for rats using robots!

Most of Tokyo (and Japan) doesn't have an excessive amount of pedestrians' litter. Public garbage cans are rare, though many convenience stores and some train stations have them.

Is there litter? Yes. Is there much less than, say, Vancouver, Bangkok or London? Absolutely.

It's due to a couple things that tourists may not be used to: -Be prepared to bring your garbage with you until you are home.

-Garbage is sorted differently in each municipality in Japan, and often the garbage bags cost money. Who is going to buy those bags and sort someone else's garbage?

-It's changing, but walking around consuming snacks, food, drinks in Japan is not that common. People do that at specific locations, thus they don't find themselves with empty food wrappers and drink cups while walking around. Thus, they don't see a need for public garbage cans.

-Crows make a quick mess of garbage here. Observing the above points means that (most) of Japan doesn't need stinky, sticky, flies-and-wasps-buzzing-around, crow-magnet garbage cans, which look almost as bad as litter everywhere.

Never been to Japan, but AFAIK they used to have trash cans but got rid of them due to a sarin gas terrorist attack in 1995.

>Some people even keep them as pets, you know?

Weird people.

Man I had a rat infestation in my house recently, and after that I think I could get behind a rat genocide.

Those fuckers got into my pantry and started knocking jars over, they poop on everything, they make a lot of noise, they get into the air conditioning ducts, they will chew through pretty much anything that isn't thick metal or plastic, and they reproduce like crazy.

We were able to get it under control and we hired someone to find and seal up the spots they were getting in from, but I gotta say that it wasn't an experience I want to go through ever again.

The only "good" thing about rats vs mice is that they're decidedly not subtle, so it's a lot more clear that you actually got them all. Mice are smaller and sneakier and when we had an issue with them a few years ago it took quite awhile to know before we knew they were gone.

Yup, if you live below the 20th floor in most buildings, the trash cans thudding at 2am is pretty jarring.

I am sure there is an engineering solve to pad the cans and dump truck, not sure if it was looked into or not.

They are, but man the appeal does wear off, at least it did for me.

I moved here when I was 24, and I loved it for the first 8 years. Almost overnight, when I was 32, I realized that I actually don't enjoy living in the city anymore. It's loud, expensive, I don't really do "indie" restaurants, I don't like most art, and I'm married so I don't really need more romantic partners.

I still live in NYC, purely because my current job won't let me move, but I have been looking for an escape.

They are also good for business.