Garbager

Joshua Allen Harris is a street artist who makes inflatable sculptures out of shopping bags and trash bags. The sculptures inflate by means of subway or exhaust air.

Part of the magic of it is that it looks like trash on the street, then it becomes animated and comes to life – Joshua Allen Harris

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“When Street Team member (weact.org), and Harlem resident, Betty Fincher inquired about the best way to have garbage complaints addressed, Supervisor Milagros Medina of the Department of Sanitation (DOS) informed the team that calling 311 and stating specific problems was the most effective manner of problem resolution. She stated that handling 311 phone calls was of high priority to DOS.
She further explained that each supervisor receives a list of 311 complaints in the morning and the majority must be hand-delivered before the end of the day. Supervisor Duncan also mentioned that residents could help improve garbage maintenance by recycling properly and tying up garbage bags.”

Source: www.weact.org

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The New York City rat is called Rattus Norvegicus (Norway Rat) or sewer rat or water rat. It has a life span of about one year. It is 12 to 16” long including the tail. It weighs one pound. The female gives birth 5 to 8 times a year and has 6 – 12 babies or pups. The gestation period is 22 days. The rat is a burrowing, gnawing, nocturnal (night time) creature of habit. It burrows in the ground, under buildings, and in rubbish. It will travel from 100 to 150 feet from its resting place. It requires one ounce of food daily and one ounce of water. It feeds on animals and vegetables and prefers meat and fish.

Diseases caused by rats

• Salmonellosis, Bacterial food poisoning – most common disease transmitted by rats in United States
• Murine Typhus, Transmitted from rodent to rodent and to man by scratching infected flea feces intoskin
• Leptospirosis, (Weil’s Disease) –Transmitted from rodent and to man by contact with infected urine
• Plague, Highly fatal bacterial disease for mammals transmitted from field rodent to man by bites of infected fleas (Pasturella Pestis)
• Rat Bite Fever, Bacterial disease –bite infected rat
• Trichinosis, Endo Parasite – pork infected with parasites by ingesting rat contaminated garbage/food. Vicious cycle – rat – pig – man
• Rabies – Non existent or reported case

Source: The City of New York Department of Housing Preservation & Development: Housing Education Program on Pest Control

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“We put rats in relatively large areas with objects and routes resembling those in Manhattan,” explains Prof. Eilam. The rats, he found, do the same things humans do: They establish a grid system to orient themselves. Using the grid, the rats covered a vast amount of territory, “seeing the sights” quickly. In contrast, rats in an irregular plan resembling New Orleans’ failed to move far from where they started and didn’t cover much territory, despite travelling the same distances as the “Manhattan rats.”

Source: Science Daily

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It doesn’t seem to matter what side of the Williamsburg bridge you’re on, the trash is high and wide on a Sunday night.

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Cruising the trashy streets of Williamsburg on a spring Sunday evening.

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Many people have seen photographs of seals trapped in nets or choked by plastic six-pack rings, or sea turtles feeding on plastic shopping bags, but the poster child for the consumption of pelagic plastic debris has to be the Laysan albatross. The plastic gadgets one typically finds in the stomach of the bird-whose range encompasses the remote, virtually uninhabited region around the northwest Hawaiian Islands-could stock the checkout counter at a convenience store.

–Across the Pacific Ocean, Plastics, Plastics, Everywhere

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