February 1, 2024 NYC Office of the Mayor
Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. They say New York cannot be contained, they're wrong. Over the past year, this city, led by our fearless rat‑hating Mayor Eric Adams, has been on a relentless march to banish black bags and send rats packing. After decades of having them hang out, we sharply curtailed the time black bags can stay on our city streets. They don't pay rent, no lingering.
Then we required food businesses and chain stores to containerize, city businesses that generate the trash most appealing to rats. We piloted on‑street containers and mechanized collection for residents, schools in Hamilton Heights, and we put out a notice to all businesses citywide and smaller residential buildings that it would soon be time for them to put their trash away, too. But we're just getting warmed up. So, I'd like to introduce our mayor, Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, just amazing when you think about it, the transformation. Many people thought it was going to take us four years to do so. They just did not know the men and women of the DSNY and the amazing commissioner, Commissioner Tisch.
We are seeing real action in progress; and so, Deputy Mayor Joshi, I want to thank you for taking this major leap forward towards the trash revolution. It's more than just moving garbage off our streets, it's just a transformative moment for us in how we want to change the visibility of the streets that we call New York.
With the truck you see next to me, it represents the future of New York City garbage collection. And we are excited as this prototype will collect trash using automated side loading so that we can service large on‑street containers like the ones you see here and pick up New Yorkers' trash quicker, cleaner and smarter.
This is a working prototype designed to fit the unique needs of New York City delivered four years ahead of expectation. That's what you call Get Stuff Done because I was clear when we came into office, we're going to protect public safety, revitalize our economy and make our city more livable, and removing trash bags and garbage off our streets is a key element of a livable city. That's why we kicked off this trash revolution and giving New Yorkers the world‑class livability and the clean streets that they deserve.
And as I announced at the State of the City address last week, our goal is to take trash bags off our streets, every single bag. That means no more dodging smelly bags on sidewalks trying to navigate rodents that come out of these bags.
And so today we are announcing the next stage of containerizing our garbage: a full‑scale full containerization pilot in Harlem's Community Board 9. That would include the use of stationary on‑street containers like those you might see in a European or in Asian cities. They should not be ahead of us. We need to make sure that we leave from the front, and we can lead from the front by having side loaders picking up our trash.
The 10 blocks of Community Board 9 have already been a part of our pilot using wheeled containers, and we experienced overwhelming success. People have really appreciated the results that we have put in place. Rats sightings fell by more than two‑thirds year over year. And that's real progress, and it's fast. Commissioner Tisch has always stated if we take the bags off the streets, we could have the rats packing their bags and leaving our community.
The pilot we're announcing today would include containerizing trash from some of our densest buildings, those buildings with more than 31 units — that's how we're classifying them — and we've had a strategy to bring containerization of high‑density buildings to the entire city. That's our goal, that's our movement, that's the rollout we will put in place. This will make a big difference in some of our biggest neighborhoods, tackling the mountains of black bags at the source.
And I just really want to thank the entire DSNY team and the commissioner for really digging into this, leading from the front and executing these plans. And they are showing the world that this administration doesn't get hung up on how things should be done, we get hung up on getting the item done, and that is what we accomplished.
We made history by establishing later set out times for trash and bringing curbside composting to the five boroughs. Curbside composting is well underway in Brooklyn and Queens and will be expanded city‑wide by the fall. We containerized trash for restaurants, delis, bodegas, bars and grocery stores.
And as of March 1st, 2024, all businesses will have to put out their trash in containers. By this fall, all buildings one to nine residential units will need to containerize their trash. And what does this mean? 70 percent of New York City's black bags off our street by this fall.
We're not stopping there. These improvements are not just about defeating rodents, they are about reimagining the urban experience for all New Yorkers. Containerizing is a proven solution that has been adopted in cities all over the globe; and here in America, New York City is leading the way.
This is the most significant progress towards clean streets that New Yorkers have seen in generations. It is something that no one thought would be possible, particularly in such a short period of time. But we're getting it done, and New York City which used to be known as mean streets will be classified as clean streets.
We're going to be the safest and cleanest big city in America. Great job, DSNY. Great job, commissioner. Let's keep moving forward in the right direction. Thank you very much.
Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Commissioner Tisch, who I have to tell you has done not only a fast and focused job, but a severely creative job in figuring out how to containerize a very diverse city. We all have unique trash, and she's figured out how to get it all contained.
Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Department of Sanitation: Thank you, deputy mayor. Thank you, Mayor Adams. We are here to talk about a massive, long‑overdue and high tech modernization of the essential service: the management of 44 million pounds of trash produced in New York City and left on our curbs every day.
Taken together, the three announcements we are making today reflect a generational change to every neighborhood in the city, and we're doing it as we've solved so many other problems: with careful planning and the latest technology.
First, as you see next to you, we have a new superweapon in the fight against filth, an all‑new automated side loading truck suitable for servicing European‑style and now New York style stationary on street containers within the specific confines of both the U.S. regulatory system and New York City's dense urban streetscape.
Less than one year ago, industry experts estimated the development of this prototype truck would take up to five years to complete. But if there is one thing I know, it's how to develop a new technology ahead of schedule and if there's a second thing I know, it's that five years is way too long to wait to bring the full fight to the rats.
We were able to utilize an R&D provision in our current truck contract that let us do something incredible. We took an American truck chassis, the same engine and cab our sanitation workers already use, and a European body with an automated side loading mechanism and engineered them to work together, which I have to say was no small feat.
We are modernizing an essential service — the collection of our trash — that has not seen this kind of infusion of new technology since the invention of the compactor truck in the 1930s, adding words that this city has never used in the context of trash collection: cameras, monitors, sensors, joysticks, control panels, telematics.
This new truck will allow for substantially faster collection that would be needed for the manual handling of the same volume of individual bags, and the four cubic yard containers it lifts hold the equivalent of a hell of a lot of bags, to use a technical term.
It will also be far safer for our sanitation workers. Fully half of the department's line of duty injuries are sprains and strains. Without the need to lift or throw bags, those can be drastically reduced. This truck makes the sanitation workers work safer, faster and cleaner, as clean as our streets will be without the piles of trash.
As if that were not enough, we also today announced the strategy to containerize all refuse in the city, including at the large buildings that are home to a majority of all residential units in the city.
Here is the new framework. Large buildings in New York City will be the first in the United States to use European‑style stationary on street containers serviced by the automated side loading truck. Unlike in many global cities and because of our unique density, the stationary on street containers will not be shared between buildings but rather assigned to a specific building for use only by residents of that building.
Small buildings, as the mayor said, will be required to put their trash in individual wheelie bins starting this fall, serviced by the traditional rear‑loading sanitation truck, some of which will be equipped with mechanical tippers. And medium‑size buildings will be given a choice between the two containerization models.
The Adams Administration has completed a detailed new volumetric analysis of trash produced across the city that allowed us to define these building types: large, medium and small. The stationary on street containers will be for the buildings with 31 or more residential units; the individual wheelie bins for buildings with 1 to 9 units; and, the choice available to buildings in the range of 10 to 30 units.
And we're not just talking about this plan. We are putting it into action with today's third announcement, the launch of the first fully containerized community district in New York City. The first district to receive this service will be Manhattan Community Board 9, a small portion of which is already engaged in an epically successful pilot of on street containers.
That small popular program the mayor referenced in Hamilton Heights reduced rat sightings by 68 percent in the pilot zone compared to the prior year. And now we'll take the new European model not just to those blocks but to the entire district: West Harlem, Manhattanville and Morningside Heights.
We will release an RFP next month to procure the European‑style containers, and we'll keep building more of these trucks. The pilot is expected to begin in the spring of next year when both components are in place and the environmental review is complete.
This holy grail of the trash revolution and the war on rats — the technology, the model and the timeline for mass scale containerization of trash in New York City — had long been derided as impossible by the cynical supporters of the old system under which smelly, leaky, rat‑attracting bags of trash have sat directly on New York City's curbs.
And on the other side, there were those who said it would be very easy, that we could just copy/paste from models in places elsewhere and hope for the best. Well, these groups were both wrong, but we can do this. This is the plan to get it done, and all it took was careful planning and analysis, all new high‑tech engineering and political will.
As Mayor Adams made clear, this is far from the beginning of our battle to reclaim the streets, but today, we are closer than ever before to that end. Thank you very much.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. And our partner in Albany, whenever we try to clean up anything including our cannabis shops. Always good to see you. Assemblywoman, please say a few words.
Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: I just love coming out to trash talk with Mayor Adams and Commissioner Tisch. In fact, we have been trash talking all around this city. Just last month we were in Staten Island where we were unveiling brand new composting technology. Today we're in Manhattan unveiling this incredible new trash technology.
So, why are we doing all of this trash talk? Because this is a war. This is a city‑wide war against the rats, and today we're taking a major offensive step in the war against the rats by taking this step to implement full containerization.
And I congratulate Community Board 9 here in Manhattan for being the first district that will have full containerization, and I'm dreaming of the day when the streets of my district in South Queens will also have this full containerization. I'm dreaming of Jamaica Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, and I know that day is going to come very, very soon.
So, congratulations to all of us. Commissioner Tisch, I just love the way you light up when you talk about trash; it's infectious, actually. And Mayor Adams, I know you just love the war, and we're going to win this war, and we are going to become the cleanest big city in America.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Who thought about this location? It's chilly!
Question: Hi, Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good. One question for you and one for the commissioner.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: For you, why isn't Shaun Abreu here today? I know he's been at past press conferences? Are you mad at him about the vote? And then for the commissioner, how does this new plan impact parking spots that might need to be removed?
Mayor Adams: Shaun has been a real partner up in Harlem, and as in all of our press conferences, we decide who we're bringing, who we aren't. All mayors do that, and we're going to continue. We picked his district as one of the pilots. They're extremely happy. And we want him to continue to be a partner. All of our councilmember districts are a partner.
And listen, when a vote is done, it's done. I don't, you know, we don't hold on to this... Man, this is a big city. You know how many issues we have? 8.5 million people, 35 million opinions, something is happening every day. We move on. You know, we're going to continue to make sure this is the safest, cleanest big city in America.
Question: And then, parking spots [inaudible].
Commissioner Tisch: Sure, Emma. As I mentioned. We are undertaking a full environmental review of all of the impacts, and for our initial estimates as of now, our latest estimates is the full city‑wide rollout would impact approximately 1 percent of parking in New York City. But it is definitely something that we are going to study as part of the environmental review and we'll have more detailed updated information as that moves on.
Question: I have two questions [inaudible] for the commissioner. You said this is for trash, why not for recycling as well since it takes up a lot of street space? Secondly, why are buildings not sharing the containers, why do they have their own [inaudible]?
Commissioner Tisch: Okay. So, yes, the new plan is focused specifically on refuse, and obviously organics in New York City from the beginning has to be containerized. And the reason that we're focusing on those two sources of trash is because those are the ones that smell, those are the ones that attract the rats, that's where the biggest problem is.
And as we were doing our initial viability reviews, if we limit the on street containers to refuse and eventually compost and organics, it just makes so much more of the city viable for this go‑forward strategy.
Question: And on the shared, why can they not be shared and [inaudible].
Commissioner Tisch: So, that was actually an interesting thing that we learned from our detailed analysis. In most European cities that have this, they use shared containers. In New York City, we don't have to do that, and that is because of the unique density in New York City.
So, it actually makes sense for a number of reasons to assign the containers specifically to a building. We know how much waste each building produces, and so we can size them appropriately. if we do it by building.
Our model, we're also contemplating having the bins lock so that the supers will be able to open the bins assigned to their building. We're also contemplating that it will be the building's responsibility to keep the area around the containers clean from litter, we don't want these to create litter conditions around them. And so we think that that is the model that we're planning to move forward with.
Question: Will moving to using more automated trucks lead to a change in staffing levels with the Department of Sanitation? Does more automated mean less sanitation workers in the future?
Commissioner Tisch: Certainly not. This is a two‑person truck, just like our current sanitation trucks are.
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