New York Trash

hi hi rosabelle we're doing an episode about trash about rubbish okay so i thought i'd call you um but more specifically i kind of focus on a woman who is obsessed with cleaning all the love locks off the brooklyn bridge that tourists have put on there and i'm just wondering oh like she unclips them yeah she has bolt cutters and she just she hates all the trash including the love locks and i'm curious if you have any thoughts on love locks and if you've ever put a love lock on anything including maybe the brooklyn bridge i mean i've never and probably never would do that but i think that's really stretching the definition of trash isn't it that's someone's declaring their love and she's just going about destroying it all yeah imagine if every time she chopped off a love lock the relationship broke up that could be a good movie it might even be happening you just don't know because they don't know that their love lock has been thrown into the rubbish no and suddenly they just have this horrific fight and they don't know why they're fighting but it's because she's just chopped the love lock off oh my god this explains all my last relationships because i never had a love lock in the first place well that's where you've been going wrong rosabelle i'm david farrier and new zealand are accidentally marooned in america and i want to figure out what makes this country tick now about a month ago i found myself in new york city and as is the case whenever i'm in a different city in the u.s i try to understand elements of it a little bit better and for me this time i started to think about trash because as you walk around new york you can't help but notice trash everywhere big foul smelling bags of new york's leftovers then there are the rats of course which love the trash tales of their underground exploits and rat kings becoming embedded in the culture of new york city and as i was thinking about this i met up with a new yorker truly sick of another side of the city's trash all the love locks and other crap people insist on leaving stuck to the brooklyn bridge and so off i set to the brooklyn bridge to find out more about love love locks trash and rats so prepare to start thinking about garbage and what makes garbage garbage because this is the new york trash episode so i should say in new zealand we don't call trash trash we call it rubbish yeah i'm aware i've heard you when i say rub it like when would an american say rubbish it'd be more as like an adjective to describe something oh like you're you're so that guy's so rubbish yeah that was a rubbish movie it doesn't sound very american but that's that's where i would connect the term more we also call a trash can a bin put your rubbish in the bin rob stop throwing your rubbish on the floor we've got bins you've got bins i thought you had trash cans we have trash cans though i think it's like old-fashioned like those tin ones with the actual lid um like okay so you've got bins we've trash bins now that have like okay the lid that opens um so is this an episode on trash or is this an episode with your gripe about people putting uh locks on the bridge like you just hate love that much episode is i've done something i tend to do on the show where i focus on a documentary super specific in this case my hatred actually to be fair i don't have a hatred of this your hatred of love my hatred of love in general yeah love like oh god who's in love what's love what is this thing no to be fair i heard a lot of people say about a woman who had made it her purpose over the last year to clean up all the shit on the brooklyn bridge and that includes all the love locks that tourists leave on there i was largely unaware of this lock problem until i met this woman and i thought you've got someone so motivated to like clean up all this shit it just got me thinking in very broad terms about trash in general and i thought it's just a good excuse for us to rant about trash a little bit right yeah i mean i don't think most of the people in the rest of the country handle trash um because chicago living in the city yeah handled trash much differently than la versus much differently than when i go to new york what jumped out at you is the difference between chicago and la is it literally the bins the way you sort it yeah so la is much more like how we handle trash in the suburbs in chicago uh-huh where it's bins and you're putting out your recycling bins yeah and i think growing up it was just recycling and regular garbage now in la we have the compost bin which is great and they're we just got i feel like that just happened last year no is it last year uh it's recent my apartment i have this tiny little it's like a bucket size thing yeah they gave them out to everyone right yeah hundreds of thousands of these things yeah i always forget that i've got it it sits under the sink i forget that it's the thing i should be using which is terrible i have a little bit um natalie and i have gotten in arguments i want to know about about this well so there was always the so you've got the black bins in la which is your regular trash just filth you're throwing condoms in there you're throwing your horrible packaging um just like but not cardboard because the cardboard goes in our blue bin yeah our recycling bin but black bins are like the foulest you open up the lid of a lid of a black bin you don't want to be sniffing in there dog waste is dog waste normally just stuck to the bottom of the black bin yeah and then we have green bin which i think up until recently um grass i consider it yeah landscaping oranges yes yeah anything that's going to rot into the ground and return to nature in some way yeah but i think then la has done this big push for composting any of your food yes and gave out those containers uh natalie had it on her counter and it was driving me nuts because we would just get flies we'd have little flies fucking those little fucking fries uh little annoying slow moving horrible little things yes because the lid has like ventilation holes in them too so they come out of there and then it just smells and i was like i'm all for compost and i know it's better for the environment you don't hate the planet but you hate this horrific these smelly fruit fly breeding yeah i don't want our kitchen to smell disgusting no this is a reasonable thing i'm curious now how those have taken off in la because i don't imagine you would be the only one that struggles with that in particular yeah and is the idea of that that you store this up in your kitchen and then you put it in the big green bin outside right so you empty into that which we did that for a while and i was like i'm all for this yeah if we just can empty this frequently you got two children well yeah i don't want it to smell i think their task is they get maybe a bit of pocket money if they empty that tiny bin into that big bin right but it was still flies still kind of gross so for i think it was mother's day one year oh god i'm already worried about this this is a great uh i got her gift of this thing called a mill which is like this big tower thing yeah it's a big version of a compost bin okay except it's like air sealed at the top i understand and every night clicks on very loudly and just incinerates everything right in it and then turns everything into this like uh little cakey powder so it's literally it is heat in there and it's it's sort of burning it into a powder yeah i think it's got little gears that turn it's it's tall and the bucket is still about the size of the compost bucket yeah and then the rest is just mechanics whatever mechanical stuff is some kind of futuristic star wars style recycling bin that's just burning the hell out of and where do you put your little nuggets do you just like throw them in the green bin then what do they go yeah so then that fills up and then we just empty that into the green bin okay but it has solved the fly problem yeah i like the smell problem i mean i currently have a fruit fly problem in my apartment although i think they came in they hitched their ride in on a new plant i got my theories are coming out of the fucking soil i've now got these little sticky things that i put in the soil covered in these horrible little fruit flies that just keep coming they keep coming and coming and coming do you have bananas i do but it's not from the bananas they always come in on bananas it's their favorite way in it's a banana it's like the second that banana starts to get a little bit overripe you've got a hundred little flies i assume they're hatching on there or are they coming in the window because they smell the banana i feel like we need a fly expert yeah we need a fly expert i feel like we're getting a little lost in this conversation and look rubbish it's a big topic that's la trash yes chicago trash is different in my experience because it's much more city life so there was always just big dumpsters you're throwing your trash into ah yeah and then sometimes wheeling those out we're talking big dumpsters yes the like i have one of those apartment complexes just throwing trash into this giant dumpster truck comes takes it the truck always comes and picks them up the second you're trying to record some voiceover for a podcast by the way that's the rule every time but then new york i remember the first time going to new york there was just trash on the street and i and i was so confused by it that was the wildest thing to me about new york is just the plastic bags that aren't thrown in a bin they're not put in a giant trash can they're just thrown onto the street yeah it's just a pile of yeah looks like almost loose trash yes that was that was two i think one of my biggest takeaways about my first trip to new york was oh the trash here is very different than anywhere i've ever been it's it's like it's foul i mean new york is this beautiful city that obviously a lot of people love but they just love throwing their shit out onto the road they just fling it seemingly from the restaurant or from your apartment just like go out fling it onto the street you big pile and of course it's plastic so it breaks yep rats can nibble directly through and just eat it all yeah to new york's credit i did find out um while i was interviewing uh the main talent for the stock that new york have had the very amazing idea i can't believe they didn't think of it already of putting their trash in plastic bins they're changing oh they are new york is changing okay yeah after decades why is the city covered in rats why does everything smell like shit yeah oh maybe it's these plastic bags maybe it's the trash all over our fucking city yeah well is there an advantage to it like what do you get into that at all no not at all they just don't have the system they just don't they just too many people too many people throw it out organized just haven't come up with a plan yeah i mean eventually those bags find their way into a garbage truck and it gets taken away it's just that interim is such a horrible time but i think my hot take is that new york is a place where you can just throw it out and it's just like you can't just throw it out and you can't just throw it out and you can't just throw it out and you can't just throw it out and you can't just throw it out and you can't just throw it out new yorkers are just so full of their own drama like marching around like furiously proud of how busy they are and how stressed they are in la and new zealand we're so happy like we take pride in being um a bit chilled out and having spare time new york is like a badge of honor of being like really fucking stressed and so i don't really gritty yeah and so in their mind it's like we're gritty new yorkers look at all that trash like one foot away from us right now as we have a coffee this is us like we're gritty new yorkers we're gritty new yorkers we're gritty new yorkers we're real and i think they've just taken it on board is their personality and that personality is fucking terrible oh you're really going for new york yeah i do new york has enough i like new york is so great we're allowed to tear it down a little bit all right especially when it comes to their litter all over the fucking streets right i mean that's that's my biggest problem with new york is just yeah the trash situation so it stinks uh i just do we need to say like a couple nice new york before we criticize it intensely um i like all the public parks that they have public transit oh my god the transport amazing we don't have that in la and oh no to be fair to la our public transport is getting better and better but it's not nowhere near new york my god to be able to stumble out the door in new york and just not worry about being in a car yeah heaven yeah we love new york some of my favorite people are in new york yeah people in new york are great other people somehow more expensive than la yeah smaller uh apartment sizes for what you're paying for uh we love new york but it's absolutely filthy and disgusting well let's maybe find out why yeah well let's look to balance it out let's talk to a new yorker that doesn't like trash and they set out they didn't just yap about it on a podcast like we are they went to actually do something about it it was a beautiful invigorating new york spring morning when i found myself in a park in between brooklyn heights and dumbo staring in a memorial of william j gainer the 95th mayor of new york city back in 1910 someone tried to assassinate him back then shooting him directly in the throat but he lived on the bullet lodged in his neck for the next three years but we're not here to talk assassinations we're here to talk trash i was reminded of this by the trash can next to the trash and blazoned with the words do not litter and as i stared at the trash can i was approached by a woman clutching a large pair of bolt cutters she was the woman i was here to see allen i am a new york native from long island but have been living in brooklyn for 10 years and i love brooklyn we're here to talk about trash new york does have a lot of trash like any big city obviously that's where the rats come from as well all these big trash bags can you just explain that a little bit because it's always been a bit of a mystery to me i don't know what it comes from it's like sometimes people almost romanticize the grunge of new york but we do deserve to not be walking down like pissed on streets and having crap everywhere and i mean trash is the most important thing that you can do for a city if you don't get it under control it's a health hazard and all these other things but we just haven't gotten it quite right for the scale i mean we have a lot of trash that's the problem it's the quantity new york city produces more than 14 million tons of waste every year and while many americans put their waste in a plastic bin new yorkers seem to enjoy hurling it out onto the streets and large plastic bags where the rats can come out to feast on it how much trash about 44 million pounds of trash are flung onto the curb every day in new york city but even the little things like you mentioned trash in the bags on the streets we only like recently paid a consulting firm a lot of money to do a study to tell us that them in bins would help with the rats. And that will be implemented eventually, but not fully yet. And things in government take time. I mean, even in New York, the mob had ties to trash removal. So you need someone who is pushing from the outside as well. I don't think that we can rely on the government to do it on its own. It needs the public interest, I think. Trash is such a funny thing because I think it's not something you really ever think about. No one thinks about trash collection. Maybe people think about recycling, but I think people are cynical about that now too, because often it all ends up in the same landfill. Do you think that's a fair call? I think that's a fair call. And I'm going to shout out a teacher I had in grad school, Patricia Schrock. I got a master's in public admin and she wrote a book about trash collection from the perspective of it being a hotly political thing to do. It's something that you have to get right. Where do you put it? How do you pick it up? Who picks it up? There's a lot of decisions that have to be made that impact everybody, but everyone takes it for granted. We just don't think about the different types of trash and how much there is. Our neighborhood has a really active what they call a buy nothing group, which is basically instead of throwing it out, can somebody repurpose it or give it a second life or whatever? I think that folks are just not quite aware. Clearly, Alan has thought a lot more about trash than your typical American. And part of the reason is that some very specific trash caught her attention on her daily walk. All the shit people attached to the Brooklyn Bridge. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Helix. Now, I have just gone back from New Zealand where I didn't have my Helix mattress. I was on my, I was in my old, my old single bed with the softest, grossest mattress of all time. 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shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada too that's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash bird for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash bird there is some very specific trash that really got your goat can you just explain how this came into your life and why it annoyed you yeah as i said i live in brooklyn heights so i'm quite close to the brooklyn bridge i take it every day i started seeing an accumulation of these little hair ties that were tied into these sections of fencing that cover up some of the cables to keep people from climbing on them and there were bits and bobs affixed to them and it's akin to the love locks that you would see in paris where people put locks on the bridge because they're so in love and whatever what is up with that lock thing is it like i'm locked into love with you do couples put them on together i've actually never thought about love locks yeah yeah yeah couples put them on together as like uh i mean maybe you can do it platonically as well but i'd say a majority of them are romantic partners and it's like our love is forever it's so funny i feel like declaration of love is forever it's so funny i feel like declaration of love is forever it's so funny i feel like of love are often at the expense of the environment like this lock thing and then scrolling initials and poor trees and things like that it's not great is it no it's awful it happens in national parks too just say i love you that's a nice thing to say yeah exactly i have a lot of love in my life i've never once wanted to like physically demark something to show that it's super weird to me the biggest accusation that i get is that a i just i hate love and that i have no sentimentality whatsoever but that's not true like i have tons of things in my apartment that i've held on to for years but i'm not like i'm not like i'm not like i'm not like leaving it in the public square the thing is you're not this curmudgeonly old witch no not at all not at all so there are locks on the bridge i've seen them but i hadn't seen trash quite as much and over the course of the past year it just built up to and i'll show you pictures of this so you can have them if you're watching on spotify or youtube you can see photos of what alan is talking about certain sections of the bridge just covered in trash the entire fencing area was just filled with debris now the love locks thing has been going on for ages tourists love doing that shit at various places around the world but on the brooklyn bridge it had gotten truly feral back in 2016 a bit of the bridge fell off into traffic underneath it fell because it was weighed down with locks 10 years ago nypd transportation bureau chief thomas m chan had this to say the brilliant architect john roebling designed the brooklyn bridge to be a safe structure that would endure for centuries but these love locks pose a danger to pedestrians and motorists by adding stress to the bridge's structure so the city started cutting the locks off and signs went up threatening a hundred dollar fine for every lock but the locks kept going up the city fell behind i'm not begrudging the d.o.t i think they just don't have the resources and it's not the most important thing they do and as soon as one was cut off more were put up in its place horned up tourists determined to demonstrate their love in a public way and people started just attaching their trash to the bridge too nothing like an old soggy sock to say i love you darling you're sort of walking by and you're noticing no one is cleaning this up and it's kind of annoying you yeah and you know when i am looking at some of the locks you know i can look at the year and so some of them i'm like yeah this has been here for three years at this point and so i know that they're not coming out and doing it ellen grasping her bolts cutters in front of me as we talk knew what she had to do so one day i remember it very distinctly i remember i was walking over it was very cold it was in february i was meeting some friends and seeing this trash flap in the wind that morning i had read an article something about ice and i was just feeling very distressed and like i can't do anything about that and it's deeply upsetting but i was like you know what i can take that trash off as easily as people put it up i can take it down she took a photo and posted it on reddit and found that others were equally as passionate about all the trash they just hadn't done anything about it so i went out there i'll be honest with you i didn't know anything about it but i was like oh my god i can't do anything about it and i was like oh my god i can't do anything about it i was like oh my god i can't do anything about it i was like oh my god i can't do anything about it i was like oh my god i can't so people can picture this that are listening we're not just talking locks which would have annoyed you anyway but it's a whole lot of other shit yes just shit a cacophony of trash blowing in the wind and i mean i understand why people are doing it she started her mission back in february going out every day cutting off locks and removing the plastic bags hair ties and tampons you've got a pair of what is this what is this these are bolt cutters they're quite big these things you're gripping and you're sort of on a bridge you're out in public with these things how do people react to it because people could look at you and go oh good god here's another new york lunatic yeah most people don't notice people stopped me more when i was taking the trash off because they would say why and at the time i had quite short so i had a stool to reach the top so they were like are you paid by the city and i'm like no no one in person has ever said anything negative to me only online and the gist was usually oh but those people put their sentiments there or you're such a curmudgeon why do you hate love so much yes people have said that exactly with all this talk of trash i wanted to see the kind of impact she'd had over the last four months so we make the 10 minute walk to the brooklyn bridge so when the bridge first opened it was hailed as the eighth wonder of the world at the time in engineering marvel and people were afraid of going on to the bridge because they thought that it was going to collapse so pt barnum i don't know how many but took elephants onto the bridge in this grand parade to say like don't worry it's gonna hold you there were no elephants here today thankfully but there were a lot of locals and tourists she took me to the place where a part of the bridge a metal guy wire had broken off 10 years ago this is where they fell yes it's directly over traffic yeah no not great at all i wouldn't want to be whacked by that as i drive by it's much less if you were cycling especially when you have a helmet we walk on to the main part of brooklyn bridge that used to be absolutely covered in trash now it's clean all thanks to ellen see how this is like these boxed fencing areas you see those oval sort of fencing looking things those are doors i don't know who goes up there the police or the d.o.t or whatever it's all locked so they put these up to prevent you from climbing up there i don't remember what year it was i think it was like over a decade ago do you know what the american flag is two german tourists took it down and they replaced it with a white flag it was not like a political statement it was just like we did it like we went up there this happened back in 2014 two german artists climbed to the top of the brooklyn bridge swapping out two large u.s flags for two white flags why they wanted to draw attention to the anniversary of the 1869 death of john roebling the german engineer who built the bridge we saw the bridge which was designed by a german trained in berlin who came to america because it was a place to fulfill his dreams as the most beautiful expression of a great public space the artist said at the time that beauty was what we were trying to capture the white flag stunt left the authorities embarrassed and they installed these grids to stop it from happening again those grids turned out to be the perfect place to affix a lock and they would tie things to all of this so just like the bridge we saw the bridge which was designed by a german trained in berlin imagine every single panel all of it she did have some help there's a guy max who comes out with her sometimes took about two full weeks maybe of every day coming out yeah how many locks roughly would you say number wise i have no idea but max has over 1200 pounds of locks from december max takes a more aggressive approach using an angle grinder which has led to some drama in their mission there were a couple complaints and the police said that they were not going to stop them and they were going to stop them and they were going to stop them and they were going to stop them and the police would come by and hassle him and tell him to go away it happened once when we were both on the bridge and i had my bolt cutters he was way further down and the cops came up to me and said you know you got power tools and i'm like don't you think i would be using it if i if i did but i do not then they went and told him to just stop but it's been escalating most recently there was an interaction where he was using bolt cutters i think and a cop told him to stop and he said you know i'm happy to stop but what's the citation what law am i breaking because it is actually illegal to put them on the bridge but i'm taking them off whatever scuffle he kind of walks away and so max kind of gave up and he took his scissors out, and started cutting the trash off instead, kind of just giving up on the locks. And the cop came back and was basically like, if you do this again, there's going to be trouble. To which I was thinking, there's no way that harassing volunteers who are taking this off is the way to go. Some complained the pair were taking away union jobs. Ellen argues they're not, because no one was doing this work in the first place. Some of the locks were big. Some were small. Some were easy to cut off. Some were fixed in places too dangerous to get to. I can see some of them as we walk along the bridge, just out of reach. So what's the sign we're looking at here? We're about halfway up the bridge. We're looking at New York City Administrative Code Section 16, 122B. No locks, fine of $100. If every time you broke a lock, that relationship broke up, would you still do it? Yes. Because if your relationship is being propped up by crap that's tied to a bridge. Babe, that's not your relationship. Eventually, we reach the Manhattan side of the bridge. Looking at photos of the junk that was here back in January, I'm blown away by the job she's done. But that doesn't mean the job is over. How much impact have you made? You talked about people putting stuff up as you take it down. Are we winning? We are winning for the moment. There's definitely new things up there, but it's nothing like it was. There's not wafts of trash. All of the locks have been taken off. Yeah. That we could safely get. And so if we go there now, there's only a handful of them that are new. It must feel good. It does. Oh, it's immensely satisfying to see it. She's begun talking to more local politicians to figure out a way to keep her favorite bridge clean. The fact is, the love lock thing isn't going to stop because Americans love their trash. I think of that disgusting gum wall Rob and I visited in Seattle. I can't stop people from doing it. They're going to keep doing it no matter what. And I know we're going to have an influx of it when tourists. We're going to have an influx of it when tourists are here for the World Cup. So I think that there's a way to influence that behavior to happen at the end of the bridges. It would be easier to clean if it wasn't falling into the river and it would be less scary to me. I think in South Korea or somewhere they had these metal trees that they put up and they were like, "Oh, put them on here instead." Some creative choice that you're making people want to do it. It's, I hate to say this, but it's like an Instagrammable thing that they can do. And it's like, do it here where we can maintain it and then maybe periodically collect them. Melt them down, do something with it, like make it a thing. Are there any other particularly trashy, awful places in New York? Well, not awful, but just places that you're like, "Oh, God, I could move on to this next." There's a lot of places, but I feel like this will be my forever thing because there is so much to be unlocked. Did you do that on purpose, the unlocked thing? You know, I did not, but it's just so ingrained in me now. I left that bit of the conversation in there for you, Rob, and for any of you listeners who also like God awful puns. What do you think you've learned through this whole experience? Is there anything you've sort of walked away with? I feel like there's good and bad things. The good is that I'm nobody, I'm just some lady and you can have an impact. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Article. Now, what is Article, are you saying? Well, Article makes it easy. It makes it effortless to create a stylish, long-lasting home at an unbeatable price. And here on this podcast, we love Article because they are pretty much furnished and lit. Our studio, which we are sitting in right now, my God, we love Article. Yeah, if you watch this podcast, you can see pretty much every piece of furniture in this space is from Article. From the chairs that we're sitting in to the sleek bookcases and record holder. I actually found this out just the other day that Rob has been furnishing this space from Article. And honestly, everything in here, the seats are super comfy. These lights, I'm obsessed with. Yes. It might be subtle on the set, but the lights and the way it's cast and the look of the thing. You have upgraded our whole experience here, Rob. Yeah, they offer a curated range of mid-century modern, coastal and Scandi-inspired pieces that not only shine on their own, but also pair seamlessly with nearly any other Article product. Their thoughtful design approach makes it incredibly easy to mix and match, helping you create a space that feels both cohesive. And stylish. And it takes great care in curating its collection, focusing solely on high-quality, meaningful pieces that will stand the test of time. There's no filler in there. Every item is chosen for its craftsmanship, design and lasting value. Yeah, you can immediately tell in a space when something is a quality piece from Article or not. I've ordered from many other furniture places, and when I get an Article piece, it just looks so much better. And yeah. Uh. I'm much prouder to have it in this space. Yeah, I feel like between your house and your studio, you are doing a lot of this stuff, and I'm just glad you're in charge of it and not me, because I would be making bad decisions. And also, Article offers fast, affordable shipping across the United States and Canada, with options for professional assembly if you prefer a hands-off experience. When they came and brought these, the guys came, built everything, took all the trash away, just put it in the corner for me. God, that's good. I like that that's an option. If you want to do it yourself, you can, but you don't have to. Love this. Yeah, and they have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. You can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. This peace of mind ensures you can invest in your home without hesitation. We are not going to be returning any of this, I have to say that. But it's nice to know that if we wanted to, we could. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit Article.com/Bird, and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's Article.com/Bird. That's Article.com/Bird for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Yeah, you did a very David thing with this week's episode, was. In what way? Where you come into it, I mean, look at you collecting rubbish. You're in a second. I'm going to recycle these. Second can. Is that empty? You drank that already? No, halfway through. Halfway through and you got it in a second cup. I like having approximately two to five beverages going at the same time. Got it. If you go to my apartment. If you go to my apartment, there are half-drunken cups of tea, there's coffee, there's cups of water. Oh, you're not even going to finish the first half of the drink? Oh, my aim is to finish it, but my brain finds it difficult to do the task. Got it. No, you do the thing where you come into a topic and you think it's going to be a pretty straightforward take on the topic, and then you just take a hard left. And then I find a woman with bolt cutters, and a friend with an angle grinder, who are busy cutting locks off the Brooklyn Bridge. Yeah, yeah. Did you know what bolt cutters were before you saw them? I'd seen them in bank heist films and stuff. I've never laid hands on bolt cutters. I just wanted to check what she was holding, because I had looked. I just wasn't sure if you were totally confused by what the tool she was using was. Oh, no, no. I had an idea of what was happening. It was for describing it in an auditory format. Yeah. No, a bit of both. I was trying to bring the audience in, you know, just radio of the mind, you know? So, what are you holding? What are these things in your pocket? What are these things in your hands? Well, David, bolt cutters. I did like that she took a very hard line on just calling anything that was attached to the fence trash. Yeah. Like, it's not necessarily like McDonald's wrappers. To her, anything that wasn't bridge was trash. And that, I think, that's the thing, I mean, if you watched along to any of the videos, you'll see, like, the number of locks and the number of tissues and hankies. And condoms and God knows what else. Yeah. That stuff's gross. If you're strapping tampons and condoms to it. But yeah, the locks. The locks were the thing that I was kind of curious about, because much like the gum wall that you and I went to, kind of saw the gum wall, and it was disgusting, but I'm like, this is a public bit of art. And when I saw the locks, I'm not as offended by locks as I am by some old, disgusting tissue paper. Right. I would argue that the locks are not trash. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I do think people are either grabbing old locks or buying locks specifically to bring to this. Have you put a lock on a bridge before? No, I have not. Would you? No, probably not. Not your thing? Not my thing. Yeah. I hadn't really thought about the whole phenomenon of the Love Lock, which had its origins over in Europe before this mission that she was on. Yeah. I guess in her mind as well. The locks attracted other shit. So her mind was, if I can get rid of the locks, which she does view as trash. I get that. Yeah. The fact that the locks and leaving the locks has then led to all this other crap, can see that being a problem. And what she said at the end there is, there's other countries that have done this where the country will put up a specific area where you can attach your locks. So not on the bridge, but on a separate structure that is there as a bit of public art, because, of course, the other danger with the bridge, which is what happened 10 years ago, is that people were attaching them on these little wires that attach out from the bridge, and they can fall because they're laden down with locks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the other thing that blew my mind about it is walking across that bridge, because you don't look for them unless you're really looking. And some of the locks are affixed in places where you'd have to be in an incredibly dangerous position to even put that lock on. Yeah, yeah. Climbing up there. over them so some of them are painted into the bridge and they're just become part of the structure yeah so the other thing is i suppose it's like a slight public danger thing of mind you if you choose to die that way by affixing a lock to the bridge you probably deserve to die you know i don't know if i that's my personal thoughts it's it's what is it um it's um uh there's that award the darwin award that's given out every year yeah basically people that are maybe deserving to i don't think people should die but my point is there's a certain i'm going all in on this yeah you're taking a risk and don't maybe climb up too high where you risk falling off a bridge to put a lock yeah but with that said i'm not i'm not saying everyone that's doing that deserves to die no i'm not no i'm just saying the natural balance of life sometimes these things happen and life finds a way sure sure um i the other thing i forgot to mention i'm gonna go back to trash i'll go back to trash um this is all hooked on the theme of trash yeah the the other big difference between at least chicago in new york is there's not alleyways in new york really their buildings are all much closer together yes so they don't and they don't have the sides and the backs where that those trash bins normally go in a city no so yeah where in new york would you even put the trash bin that's the question um and um and i guess that begs the question with all these new plastic bins coming in in new york where are they going to put them they're just going to go on the street so on the street probably which is better than the plastic bags sitting on the street it is an improvement but it's still new york's such a beautiful city yeah it would be great if they had a solution that wasn't here's a bunch of garbage bins and trash that needs to go on the sidewalk because it's also a very busy city another thing that when i was thinking about trash is that and we have this in new zealand as well but i live on my own i'm disgusted and amazed at the amount of trash i have that i generate yeah through mainly i feel like food that's wrapped in different ways yeah i've seen your rubbish bins it's disgusting for the record i was not seeing my rubbish bins but we accumulate i think in america particularly is really good at packaging and packaging things up and i even think of i go to trader joe's a lot which is kind of built for like the single person and the meals these single serve meals that come in even apple like four apples packaged right yeah and it's just so dumb and we accumulate so much shit in this country i that was my biggest gripe i have i wear daily contacts but they come they're packaged in daily little uh individual little things versus like i've always worn the ones that you keep for like two weeks to a month yeah so just taking the difference between i mean it's a little plastic guy but it adds up it adds up um speaking of wait wait uh are you moving on from trash no still on trash just speaking of um the amounts of trash that america produces there's a piece here on the internet which usda has the most waste in landfills can you guess the state which has the most waste the most waste i mean i'm gonna go new york it is michigan michigan there is 68 tons per capita so based on population size michigan comes in followed by indiana illinois pennsylvania and ohio california comes in at six new york holy shit rhode island is on the list at 20 new york madly isn't on this list which i don't understand well per capita if you're a lot of people there maybe they're just not using as much waste completely so maybe like an all-hour blittly of new york they could be a lot worse than they are texas at 18 i mean it's probably the if you have to look at how much trash is sitting outside on your sidewalk for the world to see uh you're not gonna put as much trash out it's it's like so judged yeah walk out in front of all your neighbors with all horrific stuff um i did look it up too and the reason new york does it it was built before modern sanitation infrastructure so they they just didn't have yeah they didn't have the structure to deal with it how they had done it and i think there was probably just the scale of it was too much to make a big adjustment that makes uh that makes sense very old city whereas california la fuck you we're newer and yeah so new york's rich history is the reason for its um horrible trash situation also she mentioned earlier about the elephants being marched over the bridge to prove how strong it was pt barnum marched 21 elephants across brooklyn bridge along with 17 camels do you recall who barnum is uh he learned about him last week god um barnum and bailey circus people certainly circus hence why he had all those fucking elephants i just assumed he was a zoo owner or something and while we're on animal facts this reminded me um of a short piece of film which i saw a long time ago called electrocuting an elephant from 1903 incredibly dark footage to watch they basically the electrocuted an elephant electrocuted an elephant what it says on the tin it happened uh at a coney island amusement park on january 4th 1903 was produced by uh the edison film company it's believed to be the first time a death was ever captured in a motion picture film um it's public domain because it was released in 1903 so the elephant the reason they picked that elephant which is again is horrible she had a reputation allegedly for being a bad elephant having killed a drunken spectator the previous year at the tip of her trunk with a lit cigar again electrocute that guy not the elephant elephant killed him already so it's a very good point so in popular culture thompson and dundee's execution of topsy has switched attribution i see so i think the reason i thought it was is not true with narratives claiming the film depicts an anti-alternating current demonstration organized by thomas edison during the war of the currents waged against his competitor george westinghouse this is a misconception okay so it wasn't for that they just wanted to kill the elephant because this elephant had done um had attacked a person and they decided just to film it and they just filmed the whole thing um we're all learning in real time here um i'd always thought it was to prove that um acd was better than dc but there we go okay what other rubbish facts do i have to are you just bad facts or about trash i've got a trash fact now we've moved on from elephants so new zealand has its own version of love locks and that is the kadrona bra fence can you guess what the kadrona bra fence does um i think you put your bra up you put your bra on the fence yeah it's a tourist attraction in central otago uh so new zealand doesn't do locks we do bras which is a nice twist on a tale as old as time isn't it apparently its origin it was christmas of 1998 what a year and new year 99 when four bras were attached to the wire fence alongside the road the original reason for the bras being attached is unknown and it's just gone on from there a lot of bras it reminds me a bit of um in cities you'll sometimes see uh shoes hung from power lines which i was always told was a tinny house growing up it's a sign of like where you're going to get weed from a dealer yeah no idea if there is any legitimacy in that or not but that was the urban myth that i was told you see them here in la as well yeah you do um so it dates back pretty far without a real definitive single origin but apparently military tradition okay um soldiers threw boots over lines after basic training or finishing a tour of duty god human traditions are weird bullying uh-huh just stealing someone's shoes and throwing them isn't it someone stole my shoes at school my roman sandals actually at bethlehem college and i just remember being so gutted yeah it'd be in bare feet all day uh gang territory marking so this is maybe that's where it comes into tinny house situations a widespread popular belief in the 80s and 90s that it marked drug dealing corners or gang turf that tracks with my life in new zealand growing up however law enforcement and journalists investigated this and found it largely a myth okay or at best inconsistently true in isolated cases um so apparently late urban legend okay much like the elephant electrocution being a war of the currents other meanings someone had just lost their virginity so they tie their shoes together and like throw it up in the air in victory uh neighborhood memorial for someone who had died especially of gun violence um celebrating a move out of a neighborhood so many vastly different reasons or just youthful mischief with no deeper meaning which is probably i feel more of the case is it less prominent now shoes over a power line than it was when we were kids i feel like it's less so now yeah i i have seen them recent i just depends on what parts of the city or depends where you are in but i think we have them down the street from us too i've seen them recently threw them up when you're on natalie's wedding night yes yes virginity finally uh the only other thing i wanted to touch on briefly on trash and i'm kind of curious to hear from anyone that knows more about this is just the whole idea of recycling because i know recycling there's this idea that everything you put in the recycling bin uh goes to a beautiful recycling area and it is made into a new tin can or a new whatever yeah there are lots of movements against recycling yeah essentially or just that it's not as effective as it's um no it's kind of essentially it's kind of uh myth in a lot of ways it's rubbish to make you think that it's okay that you have this pepsi can because it's all going to be recycled but it's all kind of bullshit because it often ends up in the same place anyway i feel like that's a deeper dive into recycling that you can probably do i think we can go down that road if you're an expert in recycling in the united states um [email protected] because i also feel like it's not something i just want to talk off the top of my head about knowing yeah yeah yeah i think like going to recycling facility maybe uh re-watch john wilson's episode on recycling so good that show changed the way i saw so many things including i think scaffolding is something that will always be different in my mind which though like that show john will it was that show was so new york too like every story was it couldn't be anywhere else yeah i'm desperate to see he had a feature at sundance um a history of concrete and apparently it's just amazing i can't wait to watch that okay feedback feedback we always want to hear from you [email protected] um we got a lot of feedback which was both funny and deeply annoying about our live show episode and i just thought it was really interesting people on spotify very mean and saki people on reddit kind of mean spirited um patreon people just lovely and didn't even bring it up yeah it was funny to see the spectrum but essentially what happened is at our live shows we normally record um the audience so you can hear them clapping or cheering or booing or laughing yeah well every live show we do we go into a venue that has different capabilities and specifications that they can record the show and this also comes down to everything about the show whether they have a couch we can sit on and whether they have like set dressing every venue is so different or is there a screen that we can project yes our presentation or like in austin coming up we didn't have that and we had to print out giant things for our round town um but salt lake city we they were not able to record for us no so everything was very um scraped together slightly more cobbled together than we'd usually have yes and then we had an issue with the rig that we did have yes everything was a bit chaotic yes um a couple things happened to that show too we didn't get joseley's actual performance oh the recording that we released i didn't even know it was different get out of town the live performance also they didn't record that on the night we didn't get the house mix back to the rig oh that's so annoying gone another example of what you're always doing behind the scenes and working magic on this so she she very grateful to her that she was like i'd be happy to record what a beautiful human so she then she went home um with our friend chas yeah his studio and recorded oh what an absolute legend the live music sets the scene it's like one of the special things in the room and on the episode we release okay so that didn't get recorded recorded and we didn't have room mics um apparently either no and i and it's an interesting i've never thought about the importance of an audience in a live recording because essentially the comments were oh my god like that or either the audience was and they weren't giving you any feedback or no one was there or no one was there or the show was clearly terrible because no one was reacting and when you listen to the audio with no audience it is a really can be a really awkward weird listen yeah but i just wanted to point out the crowd was really lovely yeah i i that was it felt great it was a great crowd until i said so the crowd was great kudos to them um but the reason you it's just very funny hearing the feedback and just as a technical note we there were people there they were making a noise we just didn't record it yes yeah i mean we're it's mics on stage that are meant to isolate your voice because you're talking into it and it's yes projecting it to the audience so if there was too much audience in that it would be an issue totally you can go too far the other way yeah but normally we have we have we have we have mics that point out on the audience that then get put into the mix that did not happen in salt lake city just i look i enjoyed the feedback it annoyed me as well and i just wanted to point out what it happened uh thomas rodin hi robin david uh long time listener first time writer i just finished your episode on the ice kidnapping and detention center and as a japanese green card holder with four kids living in nashville it hit me in a way i didn't expect it also made me think about a part of american history that many internationalists may not know too well and that's that during world war ii the us government forcibly removed and incarcerated more than 120 000 people of japanese ancestry most of them american citizens the majority were from california and other western states where entire communities were uprooted almost overnight many of the assembly centers and camps were located in california the survivors of that era aging and the stories are disappearing given the parallels being raised today around attention due process and how governments respond under pressure i wondered if you might consider covering the japan the japanese american incarceration in a future episode uh i think it's an amazing topic thomas yeah that um i have thought of those parallels that that seems like a good history teacher it does episode and i should also note at this point we have about 200 applicants that i haven't replied to at all but they're sitting in a folder in gmail called history teachers and we are going to do it and it's for a topic like this where we can get someone to dive into this also if you've you know anyone related to this particular topic we have info flightlessbirdchat gmail.com yeah thank you thomas for writing in you're a legend zachary wrote in noting that there has been a country ban in michigan which is huge news finally um it's taken a long time clearly they finally listened to the country episode from a couple of years ago and tracy wrote in um was listening to the salt lake city live show i didn't notice you didn't have a great audience you guys suck no one is laughing at your dumb jokes um should actually lead now with what the hell were you on about you got everything wrong so it's mainly it's targeted at me in one main thing the wizard of new zealand um formerly the wizard of christ church was an active in new zealand in the 70s through to covert times i believe in the episode i said our wizard was in wellington he was in a completely different city i don't believe anything i say yeah i try not to um he was a tourist attraction funded by the christ church city council for a long time that funding was withdrawn so while he's still around he's in his 90s now and is pretty much just retired most of his famous antics are avoiding completing the census by being 12 miles from land and performing a rain dance that broke the drought allegedly canterbury a bunch of other wacky things um someone else wrote in um that generally some of his ideas were misogynistic and i think i maybe alleged that he had sort of done some kind of crime which wasn't accurate he was just misogynist which should be you're good it should be um we're marketing ourselves as the anti-joe rogan podcast these days yeah um we love your feedback flightlessbredchat gmail.com if you have any feedback good or bad love to hear from you we're also over on patreon patreon.com flightless bird we do bonus episodes on there and there's a really nice community growing on there and we have really fun pet threads of people posting their pets and there are a lot of pets out there in the world uh we'll see you next week see you next week © transcript Emily Beynon