The measure will affect about 765,000 buildings, representing approximately 95% of the city’s residential properties.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Department of Sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced that by the fall of 2024, all residential buildings in the city with nine or fewer units will be required to store their trash in dumpsters.
The measure will affect about 765,000 buildings, representing approximately 95% of the city’s residential properties, and is part of the Adams administration’s efforts to make New York the cleanest city in the United States.
The regulation will include food service establishments, and retrofits will be made until a city where all waste is stored in containers.
In addition, the Eric Adams administration has been implementing a series of phased strategies, including changing garbage drop-off hours from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, allowing waste to be containerized as early as 6:00 PM.
War on Rats
This plan is also part of the city’s so-called “war on rats,” in which according to city officials, leaking garbage bags are a food source for these rodents so it was ordered that all businesses pack their waste in containers and is expected to remove 20 million pounds of garbage from city streets every day.
“Our administration is winning the war against rats and we are continuing to fight,” said Mayor Adams . “With this new plan to put residential trash in containers, 70 percent of the trash in our city will come off our streets and out of the rat buffet lines. We are moving aggressively to execute our ambitious vision and deliver the clean and safe city that New Yorkers demand and deserve.”
In fact, since July of this year, all food-related businesses such as restaurants, caterers, grocery stores and bodegas have been required to package their waste in their respective containers. As of Sept. 5, the rule was extended to cover all chain businesses with five or more locations in the city, regardless of what they sell, ABC News reported.
Adams assured New Yorkers that the price of the city’s garbage cans will not place a financial burden on taxpayers. In addition, the Department of Sanitation will require the manufacturer to produce them in various sizes, to accommodate different building types, aesthetics, rat resistance and mechanized collection.