David Clarke estimates it’s going to take him three to 5 years to scrub up each forgotten tree mattress, underpass and planter in New York Metropolis. After that, he says, he’ll have to seek out one thing else to do.
The 24-year-old Washington Heights resident has already made a giant dent in his personal neighborhood, making it his mission to beautify the town from sunup to sunset — and educate everybody else learn how to do it, too.
Via his quickly rising social media accounts, Clarke is aiming to reverse what he calls “discovered helplessness,” or neighborhood members’ overreliance on metropolis authorities to keep up public areas. To coach his 8.5 million neighbors, he’s made “Trash Discuss” his full-time job.
“This solely is smart for those who view it as one thing I do from 7 a.m. to the second I fall asleep day-after-day,” Clarke instructed The Metropolis Reporter from his house, crammed with energy instruments, storage containers bursting with soil and racks lined with crops. He calls it his “lab.”
Clarke stated he began this work final spring with a easy purpose: selecting up litter, piece by piece, in Washington Heights and posting about it on TikTok and Instagram. Since then, he’s planted seasonal flora in native tree beds, constructed benches round them for neighbors with mobility points and shoveled out overgrown weeds and litter from soiled walkways.
Within the 5 months since Clarke began posting his cleanup tasks, he’s amassed greater than 230,000 followers on each platforms and leveraged that viewers to fundraise for extra trash baggage, grabbers and gloves, all whereas searching for volunteers to affix him.
Lily Xiao stated she got here throughout Clarke’s Instagram Reels in Might, through the first weeks of his initiative. Throughout the month, she purchased a pink trash-grabber and began volunteering with him, cleansing up walkways alongside the South Brooklyn waterfront.
“It began with one individual desirous to make a change. All of us have that company,” Xiao instructed The Metropolis Reporter. “I feel typically we neglect, and his Reels are a superb reminder of that.”
Neighbor David
Clarke stated to start with, a few of his neighbors appreciated his efforts, others didn’t care, however most had been confused by the sight of a person holding a round noticed or pickaxe in Higher Manhattan. By now, they’ve gotten to know him and he often will get stopped in public, he stated.
When he was strolling round Washington Heights this week, Clarke stated an area grocery retailer worker acknowledged him, saying “I do know you!” and insisting he take a loaf of bread residence. With the bread in Clarke’s left hand, he pointed along with his proper to fencing he constructed round tree beds on 171st Road, painted by neighborhood children in pastels with photographs of flowers, fruits and a portrait of World Cup phenom Lamine Yamal. One fence learn “David The Finest.”
Earlier than he began posting on-line about his work, Clarke started selecting up native trash within the winter, motivated by a query he stated he considered typically: “How a lot can one individual do to enhance the scenario the place they reside?”
He acquired a Center Japanese research diploma from Columbia College in 2024, took the LSAT and was gearing up for regulation college, however finally didn’t undergo with it. Whereas he based a tutoring enterprise in 2025, he stated Trash Discuss now consumes virtually all of his time.
Clarke stated his enterprise is funded virtually completely by a GoFundMe, which continues to be “barely sufficient to cowl the price of operating this factor.” He stated he’s raised greater than $55,000 to this point, and places all of it again into tools.
On Tuesday afternoon, he was headed to B&H Movies downtown to study extra about what he wants to start out capturing horizontal, long-form movies. The vertical, 60-second mannequin isn’t lengthy sufficient to inform each story, he stated.
When Clarke constructed wood fencing and planted perennials round a tree mattress for his neighbor Dee, he stated, the expertise didn’t absolutely translate for social media. She had constructed a memorial there for her nephew in 2022, but it surely’d been misplaced to time and litter. Clarke added in a small bench, bargaining along with his constructing’s disgruntled tremendous who he stated was certain “there’ll be children on the market smoking weed at night time.” (He stated his tremendous is now one in all his largest supporters.)
Later, in accordance with Clarke, Dee confirmed as much as his door with soup, a handwritten letter, a subway map and different knickknacks for his kindness.
Is This Authorized?
Clarke’s relationship with metropolis companies is a bit more difficult than his relationship along with his neighbors. He’s chided the Division of Transportation, which manages most of the metropolis’s public areas, on-line in regards to the quantity of muck and litter within the Haven Park Underpass in Washington Heights. DOT didn’t reply to The Metropolis Reporter’s requests for remark.
The Parks Division, the company in control of tree beds, encourages New Yorkers to plant in road tree pits, offered they don’t hurt timber or introduce invasive species, equivalent to bamboo, into neighborhoods, spokesperson Judd Faulkner instructed The Metropolis Reporter.
“NYC Parks loves seeing New Yorkers take an energetic position in caring for the tree beds and pure areas of their neighborhoods, and encourages anybody occupied with stewardship to become involved, as a result of neighborhood care helps our road timber and inexperienced areas thrive,” Faulkner stated in a press release.
Clarke added that his company contacts have been pleasant and useful.
The Division of Sanitation praised Clarke — and inspired different New Yorkers to do their half.
“We assist the good variety of residents equivalent to David and longstanding neighborhood teams who assist look after our public areas and set up cleanups to enhance high quality of life of their neighborhoods,” spokesperson Vincent Gragnani stated in a press release. “We hope that their work conjures up all New Yorkers to chorus from littering and put trash in its correct place.”
Via the division’s volunteer cleanup program, residents can borrow tools to choose up litter in public areas throughout the town, besides parks and seashores.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani follows Clarke on TikTok, and whereas the administration invited him to be a visitor on one of many mayor’s fireplace chat-like “Discuss With the Individuals” livestreams in July — in accordance with group chat messages reviewed by The Metropolis Reporter — he didn’t take part. (Clarke stated he’s ready to tug “the Mamdani card” for one thing down the road — however he’s not but certain what.)
Clarke stated main as much as the June major election, he observed that after he posted movies about some messy areas in his neighborhood, they received cleaned up inside just a few days.
“It’s a bizarre political vulnerability, however trash appears dangerous,” he stated.
By the top of his Trash Discuss adventures, Clarke stated he needs all 5 boroughs totally beautified. However every venture — each tree mattress, plant and bench — must be maintained. He can deal with those on his block for now — the wood fencing across the tree beds will should be changed each 5 years — however is within the strategy of writing a guide so neighborhood members can likewise preserve tree beds close to their residences.
When he’s carried out, possibly he’ll discover one other drawback to unravel — and publish about it on TikTok.
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