[asah]

If you've never lived in NYC, you have no idea... just say the words "summer garbage strike" to any NYer and they'll have stories of 10-high bags of garbage piling up on streets in 95 degree heat and 95% humidity, while the unions wait until city hall caves...

[yardie]

Honestly, can you blame them. It's toxic, backbreaking work. Easily dismissed and essential at the same time. Trash collection is the number 1 contributor to public health.

[pkaye]

I guess it cant be done in dense cities but in our area, the garbage collectors drive trucks with robot arms. They can stay in the cab the whole time and the machine does the work in a fraction of the time and workers involved. The catch is that the homeowner needs to pull their cart to the street curb but personally that is not a big deal. One good point is because the machine lifts the cart, I can fill them up quite heavy and they not complain.

[yardie]

> I can fill them up quite heavy and they not complain.

Just be mindful. According to a friend that works for the waste collection for the city the arms do have a scale built in. Occasionally homeowners try to dispose of something heavy, like construction material, and the driver will leave it right at the curb.

Also, I think it can be done. NYC simply chooses not to. Paris, for example, has uniform size and color bins.

[dionidium]

There are no carts in New York City. The trash is piled up in bags at the curb. It can be quite a sight.

[skrebbel]

You make it sound like that's a law of nature.

[cmurf]

In NYC there are all kinds of violations of normalcy and sanity, that become, "well how the f else is gonna work?" It is after all, the center of the known universe.

[dionidium]

Nope. Just a banal statement of fact.

[mertd]

This is another instance where the value of the work is visibly different than the value of the labor. Teachers are the classical example of providing much higher value than what they are compensated for.

[Pxtl]

The Toronto summer garbage strike was so nasty and so gross and so angry that I think it did permanent damage to organized labour in Canada.

I mean, it helped precipitate the election of Rob freaking Ford.

[cylinder]

Unions? The garbage pickup is done by private contractors... Usually based in NJ and probably connected to organized crime.

[keevie]

That's true for commercial waste, not residential. http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dsny/index.page http://teamsters.nyc/locals/local-831/