New York City paid McKinsey $4,000,000 to do a study on if trash cans work

New York City’s long-stalled plans to test containerized trash collection are gaining momentum. The city has commissioned a multimillion-dollar study and two of its largest property owners have launched pilot programs for garbage bins.

Earlier this week, the Department of Sanitation and the city’s Economic Development Corporation awarded a $4 million contract to McKinsey & Company to examine the implementation of a citywide container bin pilot program. Streetsblog first reported the deal.

Over a 20-week period, McKinsey will study cities like Paris and Amsterdam that use containers and identify which types of bins would work best for New York City. This contract is a relatively small project for the consulting giant, which last year paid nearly $600 million to settle allegations related to its role in advising opioid manufacturers.

Councilwoman Sandy Nurse, head of the council's sanitation committee, questioned the need for a new study by McKinsey, given that the city has been examining container bins for decades.

“There was a body of work done… [with] a lot of these ideas that is sitting there and could easily be looked at again,” Nurse said. “Hiring McKinsey seems a little unnecessary at best. The city should be developing this kind of expertise in-house, at city agencies.”

McKinsey won’t have to look far to see how trash container bins are being utilized. The city has already launched a $1.3 million pilot program placing bins in five neighborhoods, including outside an NYU dormitory.

NYCHA has also announced their own container bin pilot project dubbed “Clean Curbs for All.” This project proposes renting a truck “with a semi or fully automatic lifting device to service the containers,” according to a notice issued on Sept. 23.

If NYCHA adopts containerization across its 335 developments, more than half a million New Yorkers living in NYCHA’s 177,569 apartments could have their trash collected in bins instead of navigating sidewalks piled high with garbage and recycling bags.

The pilot program could help scale container bins citywide, “lowering barriers to implementation in NYCHA and potentially NYC,” the city wrote in a request for proposals.

City officials have long debated how to better collect the 24 million pounds of garbage and recycling generated daily in New York City, with most residential trash bagged and put curbside for collection by the sanitation department. The mountains of trash throughout the city are often smelly, leaky, and serve as what Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch has called “an all-you-can-eat buffet for rats.”

A trash container bin in Times Square.
Container bins like this one could be the future of garbage collection in New York City.

NYC Mayor's Office
Questions about where to put the bins have hampered progress. Placing bins in the roadway would mean giving up parking spaces in a city historically loath to do so, while storing them on the sidewalk would impede pedestrians. Other logistical challenges involve whether the bins should open from the top or the side and weatherization. Unlike bins used in European cities like Paris and Barcelona, New York City bins will have to account for snow and colder weather.

“In most containerized European cities, collection happens every day. No neighborhood in New York receives collection more than three times each week. Does that have to change so that bins don’t become overfull? If so, does the size of our department need to grow?” said Sanitation spokesman Joshua Goodman.

The city has also launched a smaller-scale container bin pilot project in Times Square. But access to those bins has been limited to maintenance staff sweeping the area. The pilot program has installed bins in Brooklyn Heights, Brownsville, and Stapleton in Staten Island. It was expanded to include NYU, where bins were installed outside Carlyle Residence Hall this week. The rat-proof bins will hold 5,000 pounds of student trash on a weekly basis.

NYU's participation raises the possibility that the university — which is estimated to own 14.3 million square feet of New York City real estate — might expand the program across its entire system.

“With these new bins, we’re initiating a proof-of-concept that we hope to replicate across our campus, and share lessons learned that could be spread across NYC,” NYU Chief Sustainability Officer Cecil Scheib said in a statement.

A Sanitation Department spokesperson said the new McKinsey study will help clarify how the country’s biggest city will finally implement container bins.

“McKinsey had by far the most specific experience on waste management, operations, design, and large-scale government procurements, without having to rely on subcontractors,” said Vincent Gragnani of the sanitation department. “They also had the experience in geospatial mapping and data analytics, supply chain analysis, and cost model development we’re looking for here.”

The study will also examine “modifications to sanitation fleets,” according to Streetsblog, raising the possibility of changing the Sanitation Department’s trucks that lack lifting equipment to empty the bins.