Trash collectors are giving Chinatown a run for its fake designer handbags.

The garbage currently lining the blocks below Grand Street may soon look like mere specs of dust in comparison to the catastrophe which would occur should garbage workers leave Shea Stadium (not to mention most of Midtown) without trash pick-up.

That's right folks, New York City's trash workers (formally known as garbage men) are striking.

Along with the stadiums, the 10,000 businesses served under the Waste Management contract are situated in every borough except Staten Island and in parts of Westchester. According to the union, the businesses include the Ritz-Carlton Hotel; hotels in the Sheraton and Doubletree chains; the Manhattan Mall, near Herald Square; and the Ziegfeld Theater, a historic movie palace in Midtown.

But don't worry, Mayor Bloomberg has a whole line of non-union strike breakers lined up to take these guys' jobs. (That capitalist system is such a beaut, 'aint it?) And, if worse comes to worse, Bloomie will just declare the entire city under "health emergency" and the sanitation department will take care of it.

Hey, maybe we just start doing that on Saturday nights when all the hair gel and Louis Vuitton bags charge into the East Village, forcing us to stay in our apartments for fear of catching "trashiness?"

Trash Workers Go on Strike After Months of Negotiations [Sewell Chan, New York Times]