garbage removal, the evolution was fast from brooms to street sweeping machines, and hasn't progressed since

from bag carrying carts, to can carrying carts

then stepping up the horsepower

From http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b2870628;view=1up;seq=145;size=75,

which is Volume XXIII (April to September 1900) of Munsey's Magazine

if you start reading at page 88, you'll learn how many contracts and how much money was in the garbage business 115 years ago. The garbage was bought, and sold, and picked through, for metals, paper, cloth, etc. 100 years ago, a lot of horse manure was dropped on the streets, and that was bought for fertilizers, and for a while, that worked out. Then that demand dried up, and for a while people wanted ashes for their lawns. After a short while, someone decided to sell the trash as land fill. Pretty clever huh? Lowlands, Rikers Island, etc.

Then, they chose to dump New York's garbage at sea. That... that is what New York did with their trash.