A Counterintuitive Trash Plan: Remove Bins in Subway Stations

 So trash-weary officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are trying something new: in a counterintuitive plan, a pair of subway stops, one in Queens and one in Greenwich Village, have been entirely bin-free for the last two weeks.

 The idea is to reduce the load on the authority’s overtaxed garbage crew, which is struggling to complete its daily rounds of clearing out 40 tons of trash from the system.

But it also offers a novel experiment: will New Yorkers stop throwing things away in the subway if there is no place to put them?

 The plan is part of a broader approach instituted three months ago by New York City Transit to tackle an epidemic of “unsightliness and malodor” in the subway system, as an agency report released on Monday phrased it.

 Officials are adding several runs of garbage trains in the middle of the day, to pick up leftover refuse bags that were missed during overnight collection. Refuse receptacles have been added to 18 stations, and, in some cases, late-night passenger trains may be delayed so that the system’s eight garbage trains can complete their runs.

 So far, the results are promising: the number of garbage bags still sitting on station platforms at 6 a.m. has been cut in half.

 The no-bin experiment is a more unusual approach, but it has precedent. In London, bins are banned from some Underground stations; in Washington, a similar program was abandoned because of riders’ complaints.

The PATH train has had no bins since 2001 because of security concerns. Since the removal, “it seems there is less trash,” said Ron Marsico, a spokesman, although he noted that the PATH system was smaller and more easily cleaned than the subway.

 The platform seemed relatively clean on Monday at one of the no-bin stops, at the Eighth Street and Broadway station in Greenwich Village, although it was clear that customers seeking a way to discard their refuse had improvised: an empty Starbucks cup sat perched on a support beam, by a folded-up paper pizza plate.

 A hole-in-the-wall bodega is nestled in the tile walls of the downtown platform. Its proprietor, Ranandra K. Talukder, said that since the bins were removed, he has been bombarded by riders who ask if they can throw away their trash in his store. Fiercely protective of what he deemed “my clean space,” he tells them no. He keeps his own garbage bin hidden behind the counter. “Very, very nasty,” he said of the platform outside his shop.

 John Gaito, a subway vice president who supervises trash collection, said the no-bin pilot had had mixed results. The system’s cleaner who sweeps at Eighth Street is a fan; the cleaner at Main Street in Flushing, one of the busiest in the system, is not. “He sees more trash,” Mr. Gaito said of the Main Street worker.

 According to a 2008 study, about half of the trash generated in the subway system is discarded newspapers — although print circulation has declined since then.

 About a third of underground refuse is in a vague category, “other,” which consists of a potpourri of trash: juice boxes, shoes, rubber products, discarded lunch bags and banana peels. MetroCards and food waste, like half-eaten hamburgers and apple cores, each account for about 1 percent.

 Some officials at the transportation authority want to ban food in the system. Charles Moerdler, an outspoken board member from the Bronx, called for a study to examine “the extent to which foodstuffs on trains or sold on the platforms is either deleterious to the system, or can in some way be curbed or eliminated, which I would favor.”

 But Mr. Gaito conceded that an all-out ban is “probably wishful thinking.”

“It’s impractical,” he said, citing enforcement challenges and the medical needs of some riders. “You have a lot of customers who need to eat food on the system.”

 The no-bin experiment will be in place for another two months, at which point the agency will determine whether to expand it. Until then, however, some riders remained skeptical. Asked what waiting passengers would do without a garbage bin, Bianca Thomas, 22, waiting for a Brooklyn-bound train at Eighth Street, pointed straight at the track. “Right there,” she said, noting several plastic water bottles strewn by the third rail. “They’ll more than likely toss it. Nobody wants to walk around with trash in their hand.”