We got to the bottom of the Sex and the City-style composting ads
"Scrappy goes to all the hot spots. But only the businesses that properly separate their recycling and organics.”
It’s hard to remember any recent conversation about transit ads that didn’t center around AI "companions," AI slop "recipes," endless GLP-1 plugs, and problematic tutorials on how to contour your nose. It’s a depressing modern hell that grinds down the spirit just a little bit more with every single commute.
So imagine my delight circa mid-March, when my texts and DMs started blowing up with pics of Scrappy, the surprisingly leggy mascot for city composting, recreating Carrie Bradshaw’s famous bus ad from the opening credits (and one pivotal first season episode) of Sex and the City.
“How did it take so long for someone to parody this! Also hilarious that NYC Compost is the first to do it,” my friend Grace correctly observed in our And Just Like That…-themed group chat (I won’t be elaborating on that last part).
The whole thing is funny and well-executed enough that I’m willing to give a city agency a little free publicity and get to the bottom of it: how did these perfect bus ads come to be?
“Sex and the City, Girls, Broad City, there are a small number of recent and contemporary shows that sort of capture the urban experience of living in New York City,” said Joshua Goodman, deputy commissioner of public affairs and customer experience for the NYC Department of Sanitation. “One of the true experiences of a New Yorker is properly separating your waste in an apartment setting.”
I’d argue that one of the most consistently shocking things about living in New York as a transplant from the West Coast is the degree to which almost no one even remotely gives a shit about properly separating their recycling, let alone their compost, but I do appreciate the ambition of the sentiment.
“It’s a particularly urban problem,” Goodman told The Groove. “From there, the leap to Sex and the City is a pretty short one. This is the kind of thing that Carrie would have dealt with in her building, and we know that she would have put a lot of attention toward not only following the rules but helping the city and the planet more broadly.”
Carrie didn’t live in the kind of large multi-unit building being targeted here, famously wasn’t even registered to vote, and once threw Aidan’s plant not even into, but on top of, her outdoor trash can. In the universe of the original show (versus the woke reimagining of the characters on And Just Like That…), the closest any of the gals would likely have come to composting would be dating a guy who’s into organics, then treating him like some ultra-crunchy freak for it. But again, I can appreciate the ambition of the sentiment here.
With overall composting numbers across the city still lagging — and enforcement against food scrap scofflaws ramping up — the bus ads are part of a larger campaign (including non-Sex and the City-themed subway ads) to reach residents in buildings where organics collection hasn’t been implemented yet.
“With composting, one of the biggest growth opportunities we have is people who live in multi-unit, high-rise buildings, who really want to compost but are maybe having challenges with building management or ownership not making it super accessible to them,” Goodman said.
The campaign encourages residents in those buildings to call 311 and make a report, which DSNY will then investigate, with “support and training” available to building managers, as well. (More info can be found at nyc.gov/compost.)
The ads seem to be well-received so far; not only have I yet to see a bus where someone’s crudely defaced Scrappy (more than we can say for Carrie...), but Goodman reports that “we’re seeing a continued increase in spring tonnage numbers, and tracking an increase in calls to 311, though the campaign is still early.”
For buildings that still aren’t in compliance, “This is paired with renewed enforcement,” Goodman said. “This is required, you have to do it, and we’re out there writing summonses. We really want people to know that this program was designed to be simple, but it’s also the law.”
Tim Donnelly
I will add my personal plug for composting as we head into the hot months: if you have your organics in a separate airtight container or in the freezer versus your kitchen trash can, it also cuts way, way down on pungent summer smells. This also presents a fresh new opportunity to snitch on your negligent landlord.
As for Scrappy the sentient compost bin, she likely has many more PSA campaigns ahead of her. “Scrappy’s always around, you never know where you’re going to see her. I ran into her at Basement the other day,” Goodman said. “She goes to all the hot spots. But only the businesses that properly separate their recycling and organics.”
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