City of Systems: Waste Removal

A recent video on Urban Omnibus, featuring Garbage Land and Bottlemania author Elizabeth Royte, offers a glimpse behind the complex process of everyday garbage collection in New York City. Combining interview, animated graphics, and often poetic archival and present-day footage, the video tells a succinct story of one citizen’s look into the past, present, and possible future of municipal solid waste management. It’s a refreshing first-person perspective on a universal element of daily life for city dwellers.

The video is one of four in their City of Systems series, a suite of videos taking a behind the scenes look at some of the complex systems that enable New York City to function.

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