Once the largest apartment development in the world, London Terrace contains 1700 apartments occupying an entire city block in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. We created and implemented a comprehensive waste management plan, and discussed proposals to pilot alternative collection methods with DSNY and the local councilmember staff.

Once the largest apartment development in the world, London Terrace contains 1700 apartments and occupies an entire city block in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. London Terrace Towers is a historic pre-war cooperative in Chelsea, Manhattan comprising four towers with 680 units. London Terrace Gardens, which is managed separately, is located between the four towers and comprises 920 rental units. 

All the waste and recycling is currently set out in bags on the sidewalk of 24th Street, causing obstacles for pedestrians, rat and odor problems, and disruptions to traffic. On Saturdays - trash and recycling pick-up day - the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) staff spend over an hour loading about 1000 bags of trash and recycling into 3 trucks. Trash is also picked up on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The development had the following issues:

• Safety issues with waste blocking egress stairs and fire hazard
• Space issues with waste storage in basement
• Negative impacts of waste bags set-out on street
• Fines from FDNY and DSNY

Each tower has a trash chute which feeds directly into a chute compactor but originally fed an incinerator. Trash chutes are located on each floor of each tower in a hallway closet or at stairwell landings. Later, recycling bins for each stream were added, but with little to no room in hallway closets, bins were located in stairwells which impeded egress. In the basement, inadequate storage caused unsafe conditions with waste in multiple locations piled as high as the ceiling. 

During set-out on Ninth Avenue, 259 bags of trash are staged three times per week along with 426 bags of metal, glass, and plastic and 310 bags of paper and cardboard once a week.

Our solutions were designed in three phases, with three scales in mind:

Phase 1 (Floor Scale)

1. Improve recycling areas in stairwells and closets by designing designated areas for recycling
2. Install clear signage for residents

Phase 2 (Building Scale)

1. Improve basement recycling areas to include food scraps, textiles, cardboard, e-waste, and other special waste
2. Add recycling instructions and video to online resident portal
3. Improve compaction with cardboard baler

Phase 3 (Urban Scale)

1. Work with Council Members, London Terrace Gardens and DSNY to improve sidewalk set out using 4-wheeled bin pilot.

Each tower had located recycling bins in either stairwells or recycling closets. We designated color-coded areas with standardized recycling bins and clear signage. To accompany this, we authored waste guidelines for resident education, which are available via an online portal. In the basement, new equipment such as balers reduce the volume of cardboard. Basement recycling areas were also set up for large cardboard, food scraps, small e-waste, and other specialty waste. 

Instead, the building could pilot 1100L wheeled bins, provided that DSNY would retrofit current rear load trucks to pick up wheeled bins. Wheeled bins are already used within the buildings for transporting waste and recycling from storage rooms in the cellar to the sidewalk. A proposed pilot would use similar bins, sized 1.5 cubic yards, that are directly emptied into DSNY’s rear loading trucks. This would require a retrofit of existing trucks at an approximate cost of $10,000 per vehicle, but the solution improves streetscapes and operational efficiencies. Loading times could be cut by half, and sanitation workers wouldn’t manually handle any of the waste – resulting in fewer injuries and reduced workers’ compensation costs.

Using the GPS devices on trucks to predict arrival times, wheeled bins could be kept inside until just before collection. Waste bins with seals on the lids can eliminate pests and odors in the building and on the sidewalk. Similar bins - 1100 liter wheelie bins - are used in most cities globally, such as London, Paris, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The pilot could include wheeled 1.5 cubic yard bins for trash and recycling, 64 gallon bins for food scraps, and bales of paper and cardboard.

Using the GPS devices on trucks to predict arrival times, wheeled bins could be kept inside until just before collection. Waste bins with seals on the lids can eliminate pests and odors in the building and on the sidewalk. Similar bins - 1100 liter wheelie bins - are used in most cities globally, such as London, Paris, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The pilot could include wheeled 1.5 cubic yard bins for trash and recycling, 64 gallon bins for food scraps, and bales of paper and cardboard.

Unlike Clean Curbs enclosures, or shared waste bins in the parking lane, these wheeled bins have no permanent presence on the streetscape, do not require maintenance agreements, and could make waste collection quick, clean and efficient.

Piloting this approach would allow for assessment of benefits to building staff and DSNY labor; reduction in the amount of time trucks spend on the block; and quality of life improvements to streetscapes. This would provide valuable information to help the city transition to containerized waste citywide.