alt Hacker NewsI don't understand why the local governments do such a poor job at cleaning litter. Do they not understand how bad it is? In NYC, the Bronx is utterly filthy.
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autoexec • today at 1:34 AM
It'd be an interesting jobs program. Cleaning up neighborhoods can have a lot of beneficial effects like reducing the amount of new litter. It could even reduce crime. It's also a job that would get people outside and keep them moving which is probably better for their health than being chained to desk all day, and it can't be done (even poorly) by a chatbot
bombcar • today at 1:34 AM
It's a cost center that people don't want to fund.
And in some places like NYC you'd have to rival the police budget to make a dent in it.
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NYC's approach (or lack of an approach, depending on how you look at it) has been to unevenly distribute trashcans. This student made an interesting visualization of the distribution[1].
Unsurprisingly, trash can placement correlates with neighborhood wealth. Poorer neighborhoods get fewer city-managed trashcans, so more trash ends up on the street.
[1]: https://studentwork.prattsi.org/infovis/visualization/waste-...