Much of New York’s trash leaves the city by barge and train
New York City’s trash system handles nearly 3 million tons of waste a year at a cost of about $500 million, according to a Wall Street Journal video report published Aug. 14. The report asks whether the nation’s largest city can modernize how it manages what it discards.
Much of the city’s waste ends up on curbs in loose plastic bags before being shipped out of New York altogether, the Journal reported — first on barges, then on trains.
The report’s central question is whether the largest U.S. metropolis can modernize its waste management. Experts and city officials, it says, “plan to tackle New York’s giant trash problem.”
The video was produced by Elliot Heath, a video intern in the summer 2026 newsroom intern class at The Wall Street Journal. Heath previously worked at Press Pass NYC, a nonprofit that supports journalism programs in public schools.