I live in a three-unit building in Manhattan, and we were recently issued a citation for improperly putting our trash out for curbside collection. We were cited for violating Section/Rule: “16-120(a) Improper Receptacle”, and under Details of Violation was written, “At TPO I did observe (3) black and (3) thrash bags white out for curbside collection filled with household waste and mixed with recyclable cardboard boxes and plastic bottles.” The penalty is $100 per bag for a total of $300!
The citation was issued for a day of the week when there wasn’t scheduled pick for recyclables, and I’m sure no one in the building would’ve gone through the effort to bring out a bundle of cardboard on the wrong day. Additionally, all our recyclable items are in placed in clear trash bags, which are not mentioned.
I’m not paranoid enough to believe that the officer is making things up in order to stick it to us. Perhaps a piece of scrap cardboard blew on to our trash pile and one of the white bags contained a soda can so he or she assumed all three will entirely filled with recyclables. Is there another interpretation I’m missing? Did we break the law? How do I defend ourselves at the hearing since the trash has long ago been hauled away?
Maybe this is a silly question, but is it possible that photos are taken of the offending garbage before the ticket is issued? (If so, could you ask to see them?) I imagine that the city has to have *some *kind of evidence to back up their claims, otherwise every person issued a ticket could challenge it and it would pretty much boil down to a he-said-she-said.
How technical do they get? Is one single soda can or a single pizza box in the trash enough to make the occupants “guilty”?
It doesn’t matter if the bags were filled with recyclables. If any one of those six bags contained a can, bottle or piece of cardboard, they can write the ticket. And it didn’t have to be the white bag- I know from experience that they sometimes cut a bag open to see what’s inside.
The NYC Sanitation Department is writing violation tickets for every BS thing they can think of. There is no rhyme, reason or common sense. They are under intense pressure to generate revenue and don’t care whether there is really any violation involved. The traffic enforcement gestapo is even worse when it comes to parking tickets. They are ticketing private ambulances and every delivery truck they lay their eyes on. They are looking for a way to ticket the fire trucks. They are playing the percentages, write 100 BS tickets and if 50% of them get paid they figure they are ahead.
The situation is out of control. Finally, Blumeberg backed down a little when they were ticketing every dog stopped at the curb during the recent snowstorm.
There are buildings that no longer recycle because the sanitation dept. writes a violation every time they put the recyclables at the curb. So what’s the end result of that?
Enforcement if good, lack of common sense is evil.
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You can’t throw out trash with the trash in NYC? Meaning, they try to force you to separate your garbage into categories???
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Really, this astounds me. Recycling’s always been one of those “feel good” things as far as I know.