After the meal comes the ritual cleansing. Bones and fat and stray clumps of spinach slide from my plate into the bin beneath the sink, landing on a length of plastic film still clinging to a supermarket foam tray. These new arrivals cover a fistful of worn-out pens, a tube of dried-up glue, a glob of ancient salad dressing, and a layer of coffee grounds. When the stew starts to smell, I tie up the bag and drop it down the building’s chute into oblivion.
Except it’s not oblivion at all. What happens to the several daily pounds of garbage we each produce—where it goes after it exits our homes and gets tossed into the jaws of a Sanitation truck—is a topic most of us would like to avoid. It’s taken care of: That is all ye know and all ye need to know. Throwing out is an act of forgetting, and urban bureaucracies have tried to make that progressively easier to do. In 19th-century cities, when waste disposal was not yet a public responsibility, garbage piled up outside the window or in empty lots. It wound up in pigs’ slop or flowed along the street, joining a mighty ooze. Even after New York began deploying an army of street cleaners and garbage collectors in the 1890s, the stuff poured onto the shoreline or got dumped in the rivers, resurfacing as a floating mire. Only relatively recently did refuse start performing its daily disappearing act—swept up, bagged, and carted away to … somewhere, usually a big open field hundreds of miles away.
Esta historia es de la edición September 12 - 26, 2022 de New York magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición September 12 - 26, 2022 de New York magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
War of Attrition
In the Kendrick-vs.-Drake battle, no one wins.
More Than Mad
Grief drives a fantastic installment in George Miller's series.
We've Hit Peak Theater
Nobody knows how to succeed on Broadway anymore.
Small Plates, Big Checks
Why restaurant prices feel so high—and why they’re going to stay that way.
Nobody Wants to Mow the Lawn at the Beach
Breck and Georgia Eisner's Amagansett retreat gives the children a cottage of their own.
HOW TO CRIMINALIZE a PROTEST
In Atlanta, the George Floyd demonstrations of four years ago are being used as evidence of illegal gang activity-and the activists of today could be next.
CHESS BRAT
It was the biggest cheating scandal in chess history. Now, cleared of the most serious accusations, Hans Niemann is gunning for a world title-and doubling down on his opponent-trashing, hotel-wrecking, money-flaunting ways.
MIRIAM ADELSON'S UNFINISHED BUSINESS
One of Israel's most ardent supporters, she could transform the presidential election if she gives to Trump like she did in 2020.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRIAL
Trump is running for president while bumping into the past at a Manhattan criminal courthouse.
Lord Maurice Saatchi
The British advertising executive is thoroughly enjoying the rollout for his new book, Orgasm.