Neighborhood Board 9 grew to become New York Metropolis’s first neighborhood to designate one hundred pc of trash for containerization, town introduced Monday.
Courtesy of NYC Mayor’s Workplace
As New York Metropolis continues its battle towards rats, West Harlem is taking the lead on trash containerization — a system set to interchange town’s longstanding custom of piling trash baggage on pedestrian sidewalks for pickup.
Neighborhood Board 9 grew to become the primary neighborhood in New York to succeed in 100% Empire bin trash containerization after it performed host to a pilot program that started in 2023, town introduced Monday. Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the newest milestone within the metropolis’s “trash revolution” at a Monday morning press convention.
“Our Empire bins are striking back at rats and garbage in West Harlem,” Adams stated on June 2. “When I said four years ago that we were going to have cleaner streets and fewer vermins, the cynics rolled their eyes. They said it was not possible, it was something you have to just accept in New York because of the number of rodents we have in our city. And we said no to that.”
Adams stated that quickly, every of New York Metropolis’s 59 neighborhood boards will “embrace” trash containerization.
The New York Metropolis Council launched a trash containerization pilot program in Hamilton Heights in August 2023, aiming to restrict rat populations within the space and clear up the neighborhood’s streets. This system has turn out to be a key side of town’s broader struggle towards rats, with the Adams administration appointing “Rat Czar” Kathleen Corradi to guide the cost.
The New York Metropolis Council launched a trash containerization pilot program in Hamilton Heights in August 2023, aiming to restrict rat populations within the space and clear up the neighborhood’s streets.Ed Reed/Mayoral Pictures Workplace
“We hired an amazing rat czar who took this initiative on the ground and she refused to take no for answers,” Adams stated at Monday’s press convention. “Job well done.”
Javier Lojan, Performing Commissioner of the Division of Sanitation, in contrast Adams’ dedication to containerization to President John F. Kennedy’s promise to land a person on the moon in 1961.
“This project called for a degree of dedication, organization and discipline that some cynics believed the United States simply couldn’t deliver. Well, they were wrong,” Lojan stated at Monday’s press convention. “In February of 2024, Mayor Eric Adams stood in the streets of Manhattan and pledged that New Yorkers would put trash in bins. The inheritors of the same cynical mindset, the doubters, the haters, the rat lovers, said it was impossible.”
Adams stated on the press convention that the previous six months have seen a lower of 311 experiences of rat sightings in comparison with the identical time interval final 12 months, as town mandates containerization and reduces the time that trash baggage spend on the sidewalk.
“Every step of this was met with scoffs from the naysayers and the squeaks from the rats,” Lojan stated. “But we remained determined to overcome the enemies of the trash revolution.”
Lojan applauded the Division of Sanitation and Adams for reaching the feat quicker than had beforehand been thought potential. He stated that when town was looking for to design the Empire bin — an Austrian type of container appropriate with side-loading vans which, earlier than being designed for New York, didn’t exist wherever in North America — an professional instructed officers the design and implementation would take 5 years.
“I’ve seen too many neighborhoods asked to live with garbage chutes and rats all over the sidewalks,” Lojan stated. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Today, we have achieved a giant leap forward for our city.”
Empire Bins are “rodent-resistant” and may solely be unlocked by residential or enterprise constructing employees assigned to a given bin, Lojan stated.
District 7 Council Member Shaun Abreu, previously a member of CB9, has led a lot of West Harlem’s trash containerization efforts because the program’s launch in 2023.
“People in West Harlem have been asking for better tools to keep our streets clean for years,” Abreu wrote in a press release to New York News. “We knew containerization could work — we just needed the City to take it seriously. It started with neighbors who were fed up and ready to try something different. Now, with 100% containerization in West Harlem and Morningside Heights, the trash is off the sidewalks, the rats are disappearing, and we’re showing that when communities lead, and the City listens, real change follows.”
