New Yorkers are so precious about this. I've heard pages and pages of excuses why trash containers can't possibly work in New York City, despite literally every other city in the developed world-- including all the others in the United States-- somehow managing to master this arcane technology.
Nobody's saying they can't work, they're just saying it's an expensive transformation that involves tradeoffs.
Which is in large part because of the way NYC was laid out originally -- no back alleys where garbage could be stored and collected, in order to reduce areas for potential crime.
If it were as simple as you imply, it would have been done already. Guess what -- it's actually pretty complex, but containerization is a major focus of the current administration. Nobody's being "precious" about anything -- there's no need to be insulting.
(Once you go outside the canals it's wheelie bins, but they are not considered suitable for use in the very centre, for reasons I was never super-clear on)
The Back Bay section of Boston begs to differ. Even with alleyways between the streets, still no trash cans, just plastic bags (that get chewed through pretty much uniformly).
