In 2022, New York City awarded a $4 million contract to the consulting firm McKinsey to deal with the city’s trash problem. Ending a two-year-long study costing $1.6 million, it has now been found that keeping the waste inside bins rather than on sidewalks is better. Many have called this a satirical revelation and expressed disbelief with a storm of memes and jokes on social media.
Here’s what went down:
In 2022 alone, New York City awarded a $4 million contract to McKinsey for its Department of Sanitation and Economic Development Corporation to deal with the escalating trash problem in the city.
According to Mayor Eric Adams, the study was part of his “Trash Revolution” to reduce the city’s rat population. It was actually Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch who called for the study, standing next to Mayor Adams on Monday as the new trash-collecting wheeled bins were unveiled.
Starting November 2024, every small building in NYC will be required to use these wheeled bins for collecting garbage.
The classic McKinsey study.
New York City paid Mckinsey $4m to conduct a feasibility study on whether trash bins are better than leaving garbage on the street.
The deck is 95-slides long and titled “The Future of Trash”.
Some highlights:
▫️The official term is “containerization”, which is the “storage… pic.twitter.com/6sD8P4TgGq
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) July 9, 2024
It took McKinsey 20 weeks to study the best means to collect trash in its examination of waste collections worldwide. Its inescapable conclusion in a 95-slide presentation was that bags of rubbish belong in bins, not the street.
The containers were to be part of what it referred to as “containerization,” or “storage of waste in sealed, rodent-proof receptacles rather than in plastic bags.” The process, according to “The Future of Trash,” McKinsey wrote, is supposed to “mechanize waste collection, reduce the visibility of garbage set out in public spaces, and reduce the presence of vermin.”
McKinsey was only paid $1.6 million for that study, by the way, although according to The Guardian, the maximum value of the contract initially awarded to them was $4 million.
A lot of the jokes seem to question whether management consultants should really be paid millions to tell people to put rubbish bags in bins.
Social media was quickly flooded with jokes and memes, questioning the wisdom of spending millions on what appeared to be common sense advice.
“If you’re bad at spending money, just remember that NYC paid McKinsey $4 million for a study on whether trash bags should go in trash cans.”