My first week, I thought something had gone wrong on the street in Astoria

In my first week I walked down a street in Astoria in the evening and thought something had gone wrong. Black bags were stacked along the curb, whole rows of them, like a collection nobody had come for. Where I come from we have containers, and I kept looking for one. Here you put the bags out and the truck comes. Nobody found it strange except me. I walked in the road to get around them, then noticed everyone else was doing exactly that.