Insects, particularly ants, do a great job of cleaning up garbage and debris on the streets of Manhattan, according to a new study. The study, from the North Carolina State University, indicates that ants and various other anthropods play a crucial role in breaking down garbage.

The team of researchers focused on anthropods, including insects and millipedes, along street medians and parks in Manhattan to determine the biodiversity at the various sites. Additionally, the researchers wanted to find out the amount of garbage consumed by anthropods and whether the test subjects consumed more garbage in one location than another. This tested at least one hypothesis, that insects consume a greater amount of garbage in areas that with more biodiversity.

Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, the paper’s lead author and a research associate at NC State, said in a statement, “We calculate that the arthropods on medians down the Broadway/West St. corridor alone could consume more than 2,100 pounds of discarded junk food, the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs, every year – assuming they take a break in the winter.”

Hurricane Sandy hit the city in 2012, when researchers were working on their long-term study of urban insects. Following the destructive storm, the researchers examined whether the hurricane had any impact on how the insect populations behaved.

The researchers discovered that the storm did not have a tremendous impact on the insects. Additionally, they found that anthropod populations in medians consumed two to three times more junk food than the insects in parks, despite the fact that the medians had less biodiversity.

According to arizona.edu, arthropods constitute over 90 percent of the animal kingdom and are classified in the phylum Arthropoda.