New York's Central Park is introducing special bins where you can throw away your pizza boxes after finishing a slice.
The Central Park Conservancy came up with the solution after noticing how the large rectangular pizza boxes don't fit in the regular trash containers.
"People stack them in the pathways, or bend the box and stuff it in the trash bins, which leads to overflowing cans, which also attracts rodents," Jonathan Vasquez, a groundskeeper for the Central Park Conservancy, told Spectrum News NY1.
It launched a pilot program for the receptacles at the East Pinetum just north of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an area that attracts picnics and parties.
"You open the pizza box, take all the contents out, wax paper, slices, you throw it in the trash, then you close the box, place it right into the pizza box bin," Vasquez said of the new wide-mouth bins.
Solution to Park Pizza Party Dilemma from @CentralParkNYC - a Pizza Box Recycling Bin being introduced today in @NY1 #Pizza #Recycling #NYC #CentralPark pic.twitter.com/OqYt0vZYay
— Roger Clark (@RogerClark41) May 10, 2024
Along with keeping the boxes from piling up, the new containers will help the conservancy keep them from ending up in landfills.
"Create a stream of clean cardboard, that we can then bag up, bring to our drop spots, and then it's moved to a larger container here in the park, and that container of clean cardboard and paper is picked up by Sanitation and brought to their recycling facility in Brooklyn," Margaret Asaro, vice president for park maintenance and facilities at the conservancy, told the news outlet.
The bins hold up to 50 pizza boxes and will be checked on two to three times a day.
