This is how subway trash collection is supposed to work: Trash is picked up from train platforms, kept in storage rooms or metal bins, and transferred out by refuse trains. In some cases, however, this is what’s actually happening: Trash is collected, put in a bag that likely contain rats interested in eating said garbage, and heaved into a working subway car. The Daily News has photographic evidence: a dozen orange bags stacked at one end of an in-service 6 train taken last week. One transit worker told the paper, “You see people picking up their feet because it will leak down the train.”

John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, said in some cases workers apparently are being directed to use regular trains to move the garbage.



The threat of imminent rat attack with the scent of freshly collected garbage may be new. But it’s not like we didn’t try to warn you.

Late at night, MTA hauling reeking, rat-filled garbage on passenger subway cars between stations [NYDN]