Anyone who has lived through a New York City summer knows that there’s a garbage problem. But it’s shocking how truly bad it really is, especially when compared with other world cities.
At least in terms of volume of solid waste produced, New York City is the world’s most wasteful city, according to Gizmodo. Research into metropolitan areas with over 10 million people published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that NYC used more energy, generated more trash and sucked up more resources than any other city.
Motherboard’s Brian Merchant writes:
“New York City creates 33 million tons of waste a year. The next closest offender is Mexico City (the label is missing from the graph above), which generates a comparatively quaint 12 million tons of trash, followed by Tokyo, which, again, has a full dozen million more potentially garbage-generating citizens. The average New Yorker uses two dozen times more energy than someone in Kolkata, and creates 15 times as much solid waste. I’ll say it again: New York is one dirty megacity.” [Gizmodo | Motherboard] – Christopher Cameron