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In late June, I was standing at an intersection in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem, at 5 a.m., surveying a row of hulking gray bins that lined the curb. Next to me, Joshua Goodman, the deputy commissioner for Public Affairs & Customer Experience at DSNY, admired his teams handiwork. We want it to be iconic, but we also kind of want it to blend in and disappear, Goodman said of the bin. Eventually we want you to walk down the street and not notice that it’s here. As the sun rose, and sleepy commuters passed by us, he explained that while these new bins are novel today, the hope is they become just another part of the streetscape. This morning, however, the European-style bins are hard to miss. Standing 3-feet wide and 5-feet tall with gently curved lids, these stationary on-street containers, officially named Empire Bins, are parked in front of large apartment buildings in Manhattans Community Board 9. They are the latest initiative from New York City to fight rats and keep the streets clean, after the city commissioned a $4 million McKinsey study that concluded that the future of trash management is cans and bins. Since the study, restaurants and residential buildings between one and nine units have had to dispose of their waste in city-sanctioned trash cans (55 gallons or less, with a secure lid), in lieu of the heaping mounds of black trash bags that used to line the streets. Then, this past April, the city unveiled the Empire Bins as the next phase of its experiment in corralling waste. These sturdy, solid receptacles replace the mountains of flimsy trash bags that rodents easily shred in order to access the nightly all-you-can-eat buffets that we set out for them. While a handful of bins debuted in a smaller 10-block area last fall, they are now in wider use. The city will evaluate the next phase of containerization after the Harlem pilot study is complete, but for now, 1,100 are spread across the pilot area. The kitchen is now closed in Manhattans Community Board 9, the citys first neighborhood to be fully containerized. [Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office] Designing the Empire Bin Framing the seemingly obvious behavior of putting trash into cans as an innovation is the butt of jokes, but for a city that generates over 14 million tons of waste a yearand stuffs smelly, leaky, flimsy trash bags in every available space it canexecution is a challenge logistically, technically, and behaviorally. Enter design. Many people are sort of surprised that trash requires an aesthetic, Goodman tells me. The bins are made by the Spanish company called Conteneurwhich has a $7 million, 10-year contract with the city to provide up to 1,500 binsand are slightly modified versions of their Oval 3000 model, which are found in cities like Barcelona. While the physical design is mostly off the shelf, the experience around them is New York specific. First off, the bins are gray with gray lids to match the color of the smaller rolling bins required for buildings with nine or fewer units. They are simply labeled Trash and feature icons of a metal garbage bin and bundled plastic bag, along with a DSNY logo on the corner. Very straightforward iconography, just simple-to-understand terms, Goodman explains. Some Empire Bins are also installed at schools in the neighborhood for recycling and compost in addition to trash, and their lids are color coded to indicate what goes inside: blue for glass, green for paper, brown for compostjust like residential bins. Second, the Empire Bins are assigned to specific addresses instead of being for whole neighborhood communal use like they are in most European cities. While the city has long known the weight of its waste, it didnt know the volume until it conducted a 70,000 block study as part of the containerization effort. Through this, DSNY concluded that a one-size-fits-all container would not work for neighborhoods because of the varying density. A block might contain any mixture of large and small residential buildings; instead, it took a building-by-building approach. DSNY mandated that buildings over 31 units receive an Empire Bin and gave buildings between 10 and 30 units the option to use the Empire Bin or individual rolling bins. Right now, Empire Bins occupy about 4% of the neighborhoods curbside parking. We don’t want there to be too little or too much bin space, Goodman says. Too much bin space is not an efficient use of our curb line, and obviously not enough is bad for sort of self-evident reasons. And finally, each Empire Bin is outfitted with a battery-powered lock; the person or people responsible for trash at the building receive key cards to access them. Theres no limit to how many key cars a building can receive. Conteneur advised the city to keep the cards plain, but Goodman felt like they needed a special graphic treatment so Empire Bin and a photograph of the receptacles is printed on each green-and-white card. They said, You don’t want it to become a collectors item. And I said, No, I want it to become a collectors item, he explains. The key card has to be cool. People have to want this. They have to be excited to get it. In order to keep the bins in the exact same spot, DSNY installed tiny pyramids onto the pavement that hold them in place and prevent them from getting pushed around. Each bin weighs about 300 pounds empty, so a lot of strength is required to dislodge them. Additionally, DSNY, in collaboration with the Department of Transportation, installed flex posts around the bins to ensure theres enough clearance for the collection trucks mechanical arm to grab them. Residents take their trash out like normal. But supers bag up the trash and toss them into the bins instead of leaving it on the curb for pick-up. They can access the bin 24/7 and dont have to wait until a specific time to use them. This way, theres no need for the intermediate steps of bagging trash and holding it in a trash room until pick-up then bringing everything to the curb. It has eliminated the building manager frustration around having to be here till 8 p.m. to put the trash out, Goodman says. [Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office] An Automated Truck for the Heavy Lifting Around 5:45 a.m., a new DSNY truck rumbled up the hill. To service the Empire Bins, DSNY had to build 16 custom side-loading collection trucks. The models in use in Europe dont meet the emissions requirements in New York, so DSNY Frankensteined their bodies onto the same model of chassis that the fleet currently uses. One of the two workers hopped out of the cab then flashed his universal access key card over the lock to peek inside to see if the bins had anything inside them. The first was empty, but the second had a few bags in it. He returned to the truck and hit a button on its side, which awoke a large, automated mechanical arm. It lowered itself around the bin, pinched its sides, then hoisted it 20 feet in the air before flipping it upside down to empty its contents. Then, the arm precisely lowers the bin back to its exact resting place. The entire process is automated, but there are cameras inside the cab that lets the driver keep an extra set of eyes on the mechanical arm for safety and a joystick just in case they need to operate it manually. Instead of heaving heavy, dirty bags into the back of a truck, workers essentially just press a button. Its a shift that helps reduce the tremendous physical strain on the job and risk of illness, especially leptospirosis, a bacterial infection that is spread through rodent urine. Its curable, but often goes undiagnosed, which can lead to complications. There are two kinds of New Yorkers who get leptospirosis: sanitation workers and dogs, Goodman says. We have maybe six cases a year from handling trash bags that a rat has urinated on, and now they’re not touching the bags. The entire acrobatic sequence took less than 30 seconds. It reminded me of the Snow Plow Ballet, a 2003 performance by Mierle Laderman Ukeles, DSNYs first resident artist, of snow plows choreographed into a dance. The arms graceful rise was not unlike a plié and relevé. Then the truck was onto the next set of binssometimes the bins are sited individually and sometimes in sequencefor an encore performance, and soon drove onto the next block. [Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office] From Harlem to the Five Boroughs? If the Harlem pilot is successful, the Empire Bins may come to the rest of the city, though DSNY has to complete its study before the city decides. For now Goodman and his team will be gathering feedback and studying how the bins work in situ from residents as well as sanitation workers. Some early takeaways have emerged: DSNY noticed that drivers sometimes park over the flex posts, so it is considering installing bollards between them and the bins to ensure theres enough clearance for the mechanical arm. Meanwhile, some supers who manage multiple buildings have asked for a key card that can work on multiple bins; DSNY has worked with property owners to get authorization. We want this to be really simple, Goodman says. Then there is the challenge of using the bins as the city intends. I spotted a paper bag of recycling and a couple grocery store-size bags of trash in front of a row of three Empire Bins. DSNY has added a No Dumping sticker to prevent this. My hope is that long-term that’s not necessary and that people come to understand what the bin is, Goodman says. As Goodman and I wrapped up our tour, we spotted DSNYs Manhattan Borough Chief Daton Lewis trailing the pick-up, too. He was excited about the new method of trash collection. Its just amazing, Chief Lewis told us, mentioning that a colleague who has served in DSNY for 20 years told him that the Empire Bins came 19 years too late. Its like a kid in the candy store for me. So far, DSNYs containerization efforts seem to be working. In the first half of 2025, citywide rat sightings decreased 18.4% compared to the same time period in 2024. Still, the vocal pro-car faction has chimed in; the New York Post accused the bins of abducting parking spaces. Meanwhile, some advocates are calling for more on-street bins arguing that the fleets of rolling bins for smaller buildings are crowding sidewalk space. While Mayor Adams has said that the tradeoff of less parking is a small price to pay for cleaner streets, it remains to be seen if the future political climate will be as open to the shift. A couple days after my trek to Harlem, I attended a screening of The Maintenance Artist, a documentary about Mierle Laderman Ukeles, that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this June. A feminist artist who explored the cultural associations with maintenance and care, Ukeles, wanted more citizens to value the systems and labor that keep a city running. I believe that the design of garbage-recycling facilities, landfills, water treatment plants, rivers should become the great public design of our age, she said in an interview that appeared in the film. They will be utterly ambitious, our civic cathedrals. Since then, the city has commissioned a handful of civic cathedrals to sanitation: Theres the salt shed on Spring Street that resembles a concrete crystal and the rotund silver digester eggs that define the Greenpoint skyline and are occasionally open to the public on architecture tours that always sell out. The newest entries to the canon, Id argue, are the Empire Bins. Part of keless ambition was to help people realize that keeping our cities clean is a shared responsibility. After the revolution, whos going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning? she wrote in her 1969 manifesto. The answer should be all of us, in some capacity. Today, that means being receptive to the redistribution of curb space for waste collection. I don’t think we were asked if we wanted to live with 24 million pounds of trash in the street, Goodman says. And the idea that we can change it is, I think, compelling.
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E-Commerce
In 2020, the world marched. People poured into streets to protest racial injustice. Social media feeds turned into anti-racism reading lists. Corporations issued statements and committed billions of dollars to racial equity. It felt like a turning point. Five years later, much of that momentum has faded. Support for the Black Lives Matter movement among Americans has dropped. Companies have gone quiet. Many former allies have disengaged. So what happened? And more importantly, how do we reignite lasting commitment to racial justice? New research from Stanford and Yale offers a clueand a path forward. It comes down to your mindset. The Power of an “Impact Mindset” Researchers surveyed thousands of Americans across racial groups and asked: When thinking about the racial justice movement, what kind of inner dialogue do you have? They identified four different types of strategic mindsets that people can adopt: Impact mindset: How will my actions affect others? Dependency mindset: Do others have to act for my effort to matter? Egocentric mindset: Whats in it for me? Altercentric mindset: What are others doing and how can I follow? The key finding? People who focused on how their actions impact others those with an impact mindsetwere much more likely to take meaningful action in support of racial justice, such as protesting, donating, or organizing. This was true across all racial groups. And critically, those with an impact mindset in 2020 were also more likely to stay engaged eight months later, even after racial justice faded from public attention. In other words, what keeps people committed isnt pressure, guilt, or even passion. Its the belief that they can make a difference in someone elses life. How This Played Out in 2020 Think back to the early months of the 2020 protests. Many white allies didnt just post hashtags. They marched alongside their neighbors, donated to bail funds, or lobbied their employers to examine hiring and retention practices. Why? Often, it was because they saw how the system impacted otherstheir friends, coworkers, and community membersand believed their actions could help shift outcomes for other people. This impact mindset also explains why the engagement wasnt always sustained. When the public spotlight dimmed and the tangible effects became harder to see, many people reverted to questions like Does this still matter? or Is anyone even paying attention? And without the sense that their personal efforts could meaningfully help others, many simply stopped showing up. How Leaders Can Reignite Allyship For companies, community organizers, and movement leaders looking to rebuild momentum, this research offers a clear strategy: frame calls to social action around impact. In the workplace: Rather than telling employees to attend diversity trainings because its required, show how inclusive practices improve outcomes for marginalized colleagueslike higher retention rates, safer team dynamics, or better pathways to leadership. In organizing efforts: Highlight individual stories as evidence of change. Tell people why their effort matters, like When you showed up to this school board meeting, this policy changed. Here’s what that meant for students.” In everyday life: Encourage people to ask, Whose life might be better because I took action today? That simple question helps shift the focus from self-doubt or fatigue to service and solidarity. Lets Make Allyship Sustainable The road to racial justice is long, and sometimes lonely. But the research is clear: people stay engaged when they believe their actions matter to the lives of other people. That belief must be cultivated intentionally. If we want to build lasting movementsin our companies, communities, or countrywe need to lead with impact. Remind people not just of the injustice, but of the difference they can make. The march toward equity doesnt end when the cameras stop rolling. It continues through the quiet, persistent actions of those who choose to care, and those who choose to take action because they know they can help someone else. Thats the mindset that makes change stick.
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E-Commerce
In todays fast-changing world, the most successful leaders do not have all the answers. Theyre the ones who ask the best questions. Yet many leaders get stuck in what I call Zones of Certainty. This is when confidence in their own perspectives can blind them to insights from others. But there is a way for them to open themselves up to new perspectives. Ive developed a framework called the Curiosity Curve, which maps a journey from self-righteousness (I cant stand them!) through tolerance (I think theyre wrong, but Ill hear them out.) to increasing curiosity. The framework draws inspiration from the work of an organization called Braver Angels, which focuses on bridging partisan divides. (Their original model described The Emotional and Intellectual Transformation of De-Polarization.) Moving along the curiosity curve isnt just helpful; it can provide a competitive edge. Curious leaders make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and foster more innovative cultures. But how do we shift from Theyre wrong to I truly want to understand their views? Here are four practical pathways that leaders can use to increase their curiosity: 1. Imagine your way into curiosity The imagining pathway uses curiosity sparksstrategic questions that interrupt our certainty. Ask yourself the following questions: What might I be missing? What challenges might they be dealing with? How might I be impacting them? These questions spark imagination and help shift us from zones of certainty to zones of curiosity. Recognizing what we dont know humbles us and opens the door to new insight. When Satya Nadella became Microsofts CEO, the company was insular and hostile to open-source software. In his book, Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone, he asked, What if were wrong about Linux being the enemy? That question catalyzed a transformationMicrosoft embraced open-source, formed new partnerships, and tripled its market value. Start by listing 10 things you dont know about a challenging person, issue, or situation. Dont look for answersjust identify the questions you havent asked. 2. Empathize your way into curiosity This pathway taps emotional intelligence to connect with another persons humanity. While we cant fully inhabit someone elses perspective, reflecting on shared human experiences kindles wonder about their unique viewpoint. This transforms our stance from Theyre wrong or bad to I want to understand. When we lead with the heart, defensiveness falls away, and openness follows. In her autobiography My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi recounted that she wrote letters to the parents of her senior executives, thanking them for the gift of their children. This act came from reflecting on what it must feel like to be a parent watching your child work long hours. That empathy sparked her curiosity about her leaders family lives, which led to more thoughtful conversations and improved well-being and performance. To develop a greater sense of empathy, close your eyes and imagine being in the shoes of someone who frustrates you. What might they be carrying? Write a note youll never send, beginning with I imagine it must be hard to . . . Let empathy create space for curiosity. 3. Experiment your way into curiosity Sometimes, its the behavior that changes the mindset. Even if were feeling skeptical, by acting as if were curiousasking clarifying questions or inviting storieswe create conditions where our real curiosity can emerge. This works because authentic questions lead to richer understanding. As we receive thoughtful answers, we realize how much weve been missing. But dont ask rhetorical or leading questions. Ask what you genuinely dont know. As recounted in Ford Motor Company: The Greatest Turnaround in U.S. History, former Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally introduced weekly meetings where executives were supposed to report issues. Initially, everyone said everything was green, even though the company was in crisis. Rather than accusing anyone, he kept asking, What obstacles are you facing? and What would help you succeed? When one leader finally admitted a problem, Mulally praised the honesty. This transformed Fords culture from fear to collaborative problem-solving. Next time youre sure youre right, ask three story-based questions. Whats been your experience with . . .? How did you come to see it that way? Can you tell me about a time when . . .? And once theyve given their answers, really take the time to listen. Resist the urge to interrupt. 4. Enlist your way into curiosity Sometimes we need help seeing what we cant see. This pathway involves enlisting othersfriends, mentors, even AIto help identify blind spots and spark questions we wouldnt think to ask. Diverse viewpoints accelerate progress along the curiosity curve. A trusted colleagues observation or a mentors challenging question can shift us from certainty to openness in moments. When Mary Barra became GMs CEO during the ignition switch crisis, she brought in advisorsincluding criticsto ask hard questions. One asked, What if the real issue is how information flows inside the company? That reframing led to a revamp of GMs safety systems and ushered in a culture of transparency. To open yourself up to diverse viewpoints, text three people you trust. Im working through [brief description] challenge. What questions should I be asking that Im not? Pick the two that make you most uncomfortable. Thats where your biggest growth likely lies. Choosing your path Curiosity is a choice, and no single path fits every person or moment. A data-driven leader may gravitate to imagining or experimenting. A people-first leader may find empathy more natural. The key is flexibility. The more tools you practice, the easier it becomes to access curiosity when it matters most. Ultimately, the best way to master curiosity is to live it. Surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives. Read widely. Go to places that challenge your worldview. And slow downcuriosity needs breathing room. Try to lookat life as a grand experiment, where every conversation is a chance to discover something unexpected. When curiosity becomes not just a leadership tactic but a way of being, your journey along the Curiosity Curve will become second nature.
Category:
E-Commerce
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