Mayor Zohran Mamdani is doubling down on New York City’s locked curbside trash containers, rolling out the Empire Bin program to six more sanitation districts over the next 18 months. City officials say the goal is straightforward: get black plastic bags off the sidewalks, cut down on litter and make life a lot less comfortable for rats.
Where the bins are headed
According to the New York Daily News, the next wave of containerization will hit Brooklyn’s Sanitation District 8, which covers Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Weeksville. In Manhattan, Sanitation District 2 is on deck, including the West Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Greenwich Village and Nolita.
Queens District 2, serving Sunnyside, Hunters Point and Woodside, is also in line, along with Bronx Districts 2 and 5, which include Hunts Point, Longwood, University Heights, Mount Hope, Morris Heights and Fordham Heights. Staten Island’s North Shore rounds out the list.
The Daily News report says the administration plans to hand out large Empire Bins to bigger residential properties in those areas, while mid-sized buildings will be able to choose between shared containers and 55-gallon wheeled bins that are collected at the curb.
How the rules apply to buildings
Guidance for the M9 pilot program from the Department of Sanitation spells out who gets which kind of container. Properties with 31 or more residential units must use locked, on-street Empire Bins. Buildings with 10 to 30 units can either opt in to an Empire Bin or stick with individual 55-gallon wheeled bins…