By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Tuesday announced the next phase of the Adams administration’s war on rats: a new plan to get more black trash bags off of city sidewalks by requiring all businesses to put trash in containers. Advancing the administration’s efforts to “Get Stuff Clean,” reclaim public space, and improve quality of life for all New Yorkers, DSNY on Tuesday proposed a new rule under which all commercial trash — approximately 20 million pounds per day — must be in a secure, lidded container beginning March 1, 2024.
This rule continues the Adams administration’s work of moving towards full containerization citywide, and follows an announcement earlier this summer where Mayor Adams and Commissioner Tisch announced an expansion of containerization rules to get black trash bags off city streets. The administration’s efforts over the last 20 months are working, with rat sightings down 20 percent this summer compared to last year and down 45 percent in the city’s Rat Mitigation Zones.
The Adams administration has rapidly implemented a phased approach to containerization, including:
- Since July 30, 2023, all food-related businesses — including restaurants, caterers, grocery stores, delis, and bodegas, among others — have been required to containerize their waste. This rule covers approximately 20 percent of the city’s businesses, a subset that produces an outsized amount of the kind of waste that attracts rats.
- During a one-month warning period, DSNY issued over 22,000 warnings to businesses covered under the rule that were not following the new guidance.
- On Sept. 5, 2023, the rule expanded to cover all chain businesses with five or more locations in the city — regardless of what they sell — bringing the share of businesses covered to 25 percent.
- A pilot of residential containerization and mechanized collection is currently underway at 14 schools and on 10 residential blocks in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan.
- An approximately 100-page report published by DSNY this past spring, “The Future of Trash,” provided the first-ever detailed, block-by-block analysis of what it would take to get black bags of trash off city streets.
When Tuesday’s proposed rule takes effect, 100 percent of businesses in the city will be required to containerize their trash — covering about half of all trash in the five boroughs, with the other half being residential.
Under today’s proposed rule, businesses will have substantial flexibility on the type and location of containers they utilize, provided they have a lid and secure sides that keep rats out. Containers may be stored either inside or within three feet of the property line. The proposed timeline gives businesses nearly six months’ notice before the new rule takes effect.
“Mayor Adams’ latest salvo in his War on Rats echoes a passage in Sun Tzu’s Art of War: if the enemy is well supplied with food, the clever combatant can starve him out,” said New York State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar (D-Woodhaven). “The mayor is that clever combatant, choking off the food supply of our rats. Requiring all businesses to containerize waste takes millions of pounds of rodent fuel off our streets each day, rendering rats unable to go forth and multiply. We will have eight thousand tons less waste on our sidewalks each year. That goes a long way to making our city safer, cleaner, and more inviting to all.”
