Corner of Empire Boulevard and Bedford Avenue

Speaking of 311, the sidewalk on the Bedford Avenue side was jacked up for a while. I reported it a while back and I think it has since been paved.

<blockquote>Everywhere else I've lived required trash to be at least in a barrel. - See more at: http://www.brooklynian.com/discussion/comment/561827#Comment_561827</blockquote>;

Does a business have to put out its commercial trash in a barrel or dumpster? 

Its possible that the commercial hauler didn't come through that evening, or that this is residential trash that didn't get picked up in a timely manner, and when that doesn't happen you get people walking by and putting trash on top of the bagged trash hence the tumbleweed trash. But overall, given the number of people that are in this city, I think that trash pickup is pretty efficient. As for the why no cans, its because requiring cans to be put out would take up valuable sidewalk space and actually make trash removal more difficult. On a residential street with all single family homes you'd have 50-100 cans on each block. Since pickups don't necessarily occur overnight, cans would sit outside on the sidewalks while those people were at work, blocking sidewalks and access to the street. Cans used to be required, but the sanitation department decided over twenty years ago that this actually made more work for their employees and slowed down trash collection, and with plastic bags becoming ubiquitous, they opted for the bags only requirement.