Islands of Trash

Join us for a conversation about trash in the city. Using Fresh Kills Park as a departure for exploring the history of the city’s relationship to trash, Juliette Spertus and Benjamin Miller of Closed Loops, an infrastructure planning and development firm, will discuss where trash comes from, where it goes to, and how it gets from point A to B. By thinking about the history of trash and the ways in which the layers of the city have been built up on top of it, Spertus and Miller explore a history of New York City through what it throws away.

Spertus and Miller will also discuss their recent proposals for pneumatic tube trash systems to be built over existing infrastructure, including the High Line. Modelling their proposal on the Roosevelt Island trash tube system that serves its 12,000 residents, they seek to find an ambitious municipal solid waste collection plan that can meet the de Blasio administration’s 80 x 50 objectives.

This program is part of a series of programs accompanying Sea Level: Five Boroughs at Water’s Edge. Each program will examine the physical layers of the past as they relate to the historical and emotional dimensions of the city.

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