The future of trash containerization arrived in Brooklyn Heights on Thursday as Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the city’s Department of Sanitation installed the nabe’s first on-street garbage bin.
More than 700 of the Empire Bins will appear in Brooklyn Community District 2 in the coming months, including in Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.
The bins, designed to deter rats and keep trash and stink contained, are required for all residential buildings with 30 or more units; they’ll also be installed at buildings with between ten and 30 units that opted in to the program.
More than 700 bins will be installed across Brooklyn Community District 2 this fall. Photo courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Mamdani, who has pledged to containerize all trash across the city by 2031, said the bins will be “nothing short of transformative.”
“They will reduce the number of pests by making it more difficult for rats and roaches to find their next meal,” he said. “They will improve sidewalk access by clearing the way for pedestrians, parents with strollers, and wheelchair users. And they will end the eyesore that is mountains of black bags on every block and every street corner.”
The city’s “trash revolution” started in 2024, when then-Mayor Eric Adams rolled out mandatory city-issued “wheelie bins” for smaller residential buildings across the summer. On-street Empire Bins made their debut in a pilot program in Manhattan in 2023, and West Harlem became the city’s first nabe with 100% trash containerization last year.
Rat sightings in West Harlem have decreased since the bins were installed, per DSNY, and rat reports across the city have been declining since the wheelie bins were introduced.
On-street Empire Bins in Harlem. File photo courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Brooklyn CD2 became the second district in the city to receive the bins thanks in part to Council Member Crystal Hudson, who introduced a bill codifying the containerization program last year.
“For generations, New Yorkers have had to contend with heaps of trash on their sidewalks and rats running amok,” Hudson said. “Starting today, those piles of trash will soon be a distant memory.”
The bins will replace about 768 parking spots in the district, Gothamist reported.
Council Member Lincoln Restler acknowledged the “modest” loss of parking, but noted that the spaces will be exchanged for “the cleaner and healthier streets that we deserve.”
They will only be accessible to building managers and staff, said DSNY commissioner Gregory Anderson, who will unlock them using key cards or a new smartphone app. Building staff will be responsible for hauling trash from a building’s designated collection area to the bins ahead of trash day.
DSNY partner Contenur, a Spanish urban waste management company who are also manufacturing the Empire Bins, “will keep them looking great year-round with constant maintenance and quarterly cleaning,” Anderson added.
Trash collection will change with the introduction of Empire Bins, too. The receptacles are serviced by brand-new side-loading trucks that lift and dump the bins automatically.
So far, the new bins and trucks have been welcomed by DSNY workers, said Dennis Schock, president of Teamsters Local 831. Since they operate the trucks from the side, not the back, they don’t have to worry about getting hit by cars driving up and down the street; and the mechanical arms make the job much easier on their backs and shoulders.
Side-loading trucks grab and dump the bins, easing the burden on DSNY workers. File photo courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
“This is something that should be done and should happen all over the city,” Schock said.
Six more districts are set to receive Empire Bins next year, according to City Hall, including Brooklyn Community District 8. That expansion is expected to bring more than 6,500 bins to approximately 3,500 across the five boroughs.
“Since the day we began our campaign for mayor, we have been guided by a core conviction that every New Yorker deserves to live a decent, dignified life, and that every New Yorker deserves a decent and dignified home,” Mamdani said. “When I say every New Yorker, I mean every New Yorker … I’m talking about beloved residents as well, like Oscar the Grouch, who once said, ‘Just because you’re trash doesn’t mean you can’t do great things. It’s called a garbage can, not a garbage cannot.’”