In Queens, there is a lot of garbage on the floor which can cause sickness and is very unsanitary. This is a formal request to address this problem by adding more trash cans and having trucks to pick the garbage often so it won't pile up due to the lack of proper garbage disposal.
In the community of Queens, there has been a lot of littering going on and it is furthermore increasing.Significantly, “As the largest city in the world’s most wasteful country, New York generates more than 14 million tonnes of trash each year; reputedly (though possibly inaccurately) more than any other city in the world.¨ (Galka, 2016). To paraphrase, this city has a lot of wasteful trash every year more than other cities in the world. This is critical because ´trash´ means discarded matter, in other words there is a huge amount of garbage in our city that makes our city have a useless amount of trash. It states, “If New Yorkers recycled at their maximum potential, about 68 percent of the 3 million or so tons of trash produced in the city's homes, municipal buildings and schools each year would be diverted from landfills.” (Goldenberg, 2020). In simpler terms, there has been millions of trash that is made everywhere in the place we go to where we made a hazardous waste dump. This important because ĺandfill´ a place where waste and disposable materials are stored. With this said individuals create so much trash that it goes to a place where all the trash is stored which causes contamination. Altogether, in our city there is a lot of garbage increasing landfills that make our community not clean and cause problems to our health.
Possible solutions to solving this conflict are making garbage disposals and signs more common in our area as well as being stricter with the littering tolerance. There have been many attempts to clean up New York City but none of them really worked out and it seems that we have been going downhill ever since the pandemic. There are many simple solutions to fix this and we can easily clean up our trash with a few trash cans here and there and storage space. One solution presented was, “launch the Clean Curbs program. This is a pilot program for commercial waste collection where entities like Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) can apply for the opportunity to have sealed, on-street containers for their trash and recycling storage”(Kaushal, 2021) Basically, there have been many smaller programs going around and they have been adding around on-street trash cans for their own trash and place to store it, and it’s slowly leading up to the nation. This highlights a simple solution to our big trash problem and how all we really need to do is add more places to store our trash other than the streets. We can create street containers and storage places instead of the streets. The text states, “In order to get to zero waste, the city will need to regulate waste disposal. The city should implement a “pay as you throw” trash program, to incentivize residents to change their waste disposal behaviors”(Kaushal, 2021)
We the Queens community request that a fragment of the funds in NYC's budget towards Health, Sanitation, & Environment be given to improve and provide a pristine and secure environment. Currently, there is a meager amount of 5.1 Billion dollars being put towards our health and sanitary safety for our environment. This is too little for the amount of trash that we produce everyday being around 12 tons and many of which end up in the ocean. Many New Yorkers don’t have much quick and easy access too trash cans and don’t have enough time to spend cleaning up trash due to the lack of effort put into our sanitation.
Adding more garbage cans and being stricter with littering rules would help our community clean up after itself. We should take care of our home like it is a part of us. Our environment is like an extension to us, it shows us how we live and a lot can be said by looking at a place.
