[hunterrible]

The real reason Manhattan's garbage smells so bad is because they have no system for composting, which would remove the vast majority of rotting plant and animal parts from the standard waste stream. NYC is far behind other major cities in this regard, though they've been piloting the project in some of the outer boroughs recently.

[tomkarlo]

Most NY apartments also don't have garbage disposals in their kitchen sinks, because they were banned until about a decade ago. Apartments that haven't been built or renovated since then generally won't have one. This further boosts the amount of food waste going into garbage cans.