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April 11, 2004

THE VOICE

As the Glass Shatters, a Super Talks Recycling

As TOLD to SETH KUGEL

Danilo Ramos, a building superintendent on the Grand Concourse in Bedford Park in the Bronx, has two words to describe the city's more rigorous recycling law, which went into effect April 1: "Big problem." Mr. Ramos, 46, has worked as a porter, handyman and super since arriving here from the Dominican Republic in 1989. Unlike many New Yorkers, he paid attention when the city made it mandatory for residents to recycle not only metal and paper but also, as in the past, glass.

Tenants don't like to recycle. They get the city's notices, and the super finds them in the trash the next day. Most people are too lazy to have two trash cans in their house, one for regular garbage and the other for recycling. They say that it attracts cockroaches, that old cans start to stink after a few days. But they also don't want to rinse them out.

The superintendent stands between the landlord and the tenant. He has to absorb all the blows: the pressure from the building owner to recycle and not to get fines, and the pressure from the tenant who doesn't want to recycle. It's like a sandwich. And the ham is the super.

Many landlords charge the super for the fines. He ends up as the scapegoat. But the trash comes straight from the tenant's apartment, full of filth and rot.

Glass recycling is a double problem. Why? Because with glass, it is obvious if a bottle is in the bag. When you throw that black bag, you hear the glass. Once it makes a noise, no need to open it. That's a fine. Glass betrays you.

I respect my job. When I can see recycling in the bags, I take it out. But you can't always do that. In this building, about 45 percent recycle. Imagine, with the rest not recycling, if I had to open all those bags? You'd need another worker just for that.

There are fines for the tenants, but the super is the one who has to show the sanitation supervisor that this bag of trash came from such-and-such apartment. That leads to a problem for the super, because the tenant becomes his enemy.

Where there are two people in an apartment, or one, it's easy. That person recycles. When there is a big family, with children, teenagers, they never recycle. It's universal. They throw everything out together.

When tenants don't recycle, they're being inconsiderate to the super. It's abuse. It's a lack of respect. And it's also breaking a legal obligation. It leaves the super with work that really is their responsibility.

As told to Seth Kugel, who translated from the Spanish.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company