New York Takes Out the Trash

August 17, 1858. New York City wakes to a hundred-gun salute. Church bells ring, flags fly from public buildings, and by nightfall, fireworks light up the sky. The city is celebrating a telegram from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. Not what it says, but how it traveled: alo ...  Show more

August 10, 1792. At midnight, a single church bell begins to ring in Paris. Then another. And another. It's not a call to mass… it's a call to arms. For three years, King Louis XVI and his family have been living as prisoners in a palace, under virtual house arrest at the Tuileri ...  Show more

Even with a new rat czar, an arsenal of poisons, and a fleet of new garbage trucks, it won’t be easy — because, at root, the enemy is us. (Part two of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”)

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Taking care of 12,000 tons of residential trash every day is a hard job. But how does that even work? Listen in to marvel at the NYC sanitation system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Eric Adams, the 110th Mayor of NYC, oversees 320,000 employees and a $101-billion dollar budget. He sits down with Martha to talk about the challenges of running what he calls the greatest city in the world - from crime, to homelessness, to his plans to hire a “rat czar.” Martha ...  Show more

A lab develops a chemical spray that shrinks trash as part of an effort to curb New York’s waste problem. But the plan backfires when the spray inadvertently spawns a ravenous, filthy monster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices