Even as the New York Department of Sanitation collected 4.1% more tons of waste, recycling and compost citywide in March 2020 than it did during the same period last year — 255,555 tons total — Manhattan Community District 3 on the Lower East Side saw a 5% drop in trash tonnage. Other areas saw smaller dips, including Harlem, SoHo, Chelsea and the West Village in Manhattan and Fordham, Hunts Point and Soundview in the Bronx. Meanwhile, many parts of Queens and Staten Island have seen a marked increase in household garbage collected, approaching 12% in Astoria.
The shifts occurred during a month that saw a cascade of actions in New York that dispersed people to homes both in and outside the city. Those included shutdowns of college campuses and a statewide “PAUSE” order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo on March 20 that left only essential workers on the job. Anecdotal accounts abound of well-heeled Manhattanites decamping for second homes in the Hudson Valley and the Hamptons.
Sally Afonso, 37, says the rest of her East Midtown townhouse has emptied out. One neighbor went upstate, while another couple headed back to North Carolina, where they had moved from. Her landlord, who usually lives next door, is also gone. The only time she sees people other than her husband is when she goes out on her balcony to cheer for health care workers daily at 7 p.m. She feels fortunate, though, to be able to work from home and stick it out safely in the city she loves. She is not envious of those who have left. “I feel kind of like, when they come back, like they didn’t go through it,” she said.
Building service workers in upscale parts of Manhattan say they see the effects. Joseph Alvarez, a porter at a Sutton Place-area building, estimates that half of the households have left for country homes. He usually starts collecting garbage floor by floor, from the top floor down, first thing when he gets in to work in the morning. “I do see a lot less garbage than what I normally would see when they’re there,” said Alvarez, 50. Many residents are often away on weekends, he said. But since early March, he said, it’s as if every day is a Saturday. “It just feels dead, it feels like there’s nobody there, even though there’s a few people that I know are there,” he said. By contrast, he hears TVs blaring and the toddler upstairs in his Hollis, Queens, building.
Queens Community District 12, which includes Hollis, saw its garbage output jump 3.4% last month over March 2019 — while Manhattan Community District 6, where Alvarez works, saw a 2.6% decline.