Trash can at a WMATA station

I recently came across a discussion of removing trash cans from Metro stations as a way to reduce litters at these stations.

The discussion was based on a similar plan that New York recently adopted in their subway stations. The subways there are adopting the trash rules of a wilderness area: Carry in, carry out.

New York’s MTA officials plan to remove trash cans from eight subway stops on Sept. 2 to see if forcing straphangers to take out their own trash makes the system cleaner.

According to the officials, two subway stations in Manhattan and Queens have gotten a lot cleaner since the MTA removed their trash cans last fall.

For example, litter is down by 50 percent at the 8th Street stop on the N/R line in Greenwich Village, and by 67 percent at the Main Street 7 train stop in Flushing.

“We need to expand the experiment … to see if we have the same results,” said MTA chairman Joseph Lhota.

Similar programs have worked on the PATH system and on London’s Underground, Lhota said.

Read more about the story here