{"id":304720,"date":"2026-07-24T13:50:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304720\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T13:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:50:30","slug":"on-street-trash-containerization-is-coming-to-brooklyn-community-board-2-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304720\/","title":{"rendered":"On-street trash containerization is coming to Brooklyn Community Board 2 \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trash bags piled up on the sidewalk on collection day will soon be a thing of the past for Brooklyn Community Board 2.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Curbside Empire Bins are set to arrive in Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and the Brooklyn Navy Yard this fall as the city expands its trash containerization program. The large on-street containers will be required for every residential building with more than 30 units, while buildings with between 10-30 units can choose either an Empire Bin or to continue using the city\u2019s standardized \u201cwheelie bins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bins are designed to keep rats out and trash and mystery liquids in, and can only be opened with special key cards provided to building management and staff, who will be tasked with ferrying trash bags from the buildings out to the street.<\/p>\n

\"empireThe large curbside Empire Bins are required for all buildings with more than 30 units.File photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

All residential buildings with more than 30 units are required to register<\/a> with the Department of Sanitation by July 31, and smaller buildings can opt-in during the same period.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council Member Lincoln Restler said he\u2019s \u201celated\u201d by the arrival of Empire Bins in his district.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAs New Yorkers we have all experienced walking by a wall of trash bags that are stacked higher than us,\u201d Restler said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s so gross, especially in the summer when the smell is just disgusting. These are just piles of rat food that we put out on the street every day, and from larger buildings, they can be absolutely massive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then-mayor Eric Adams kicked off the city\u2019s \u201ctrash revolution\u201d by requiring smaller buildings to make use of city-issued trash bins in 2024.<\/a> The on-street containerization program was announced later that year, and Manhattan\u2019s Community District 9 became the first New York City neighborhood with 100% trash containerization<\/a> in June 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brooklyn Community Board 2 will be the second. Five more districts, including Brooklyn Community District 8, are set to receive Empire Bins by 2027, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said all trash citywide will be containerized by the end of 2031. The Empire Bins are accompanied by new side-loading DSNY trucks that automatically grab, lift, and dump the bins without sanitation workers needing to get out and grab individual trash cans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"mamdaniMayor Zohran Mamdani said trash in the city will be 100% containerized by 2031. File photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

The Department of Sanitation has conducted a \u201cmassive\u201d outreach operation in CB2, said agency spox Vincent Gragnani, including visiting 450 mid-sized buildings with the option to choose Empire Bins or the smaller bins.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong these, roughly 50 buildings have opted for Empire Bins so far, but discussions with building owners and managers are ongoing,\u201d Gragnani added. \u201cIn Manhattan District 9, we saw a lot of sign-ups in the final days.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency expects to install around 1,700 Empire Bins in CB2 starting this fall.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

DSNY is also piloting shared Empire Bins in CB2, allowing smaller properties on the same block to share an Empire Bin. There has not been a lot of interest in the shared bins just yet, Gragnani said, but DSNY wanted to \u201cgauge interest and to test the concept on a smaller scale\u201d before the larger rollout next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rat sightings in West Harlem have been on the decrease since the bins were installed, Gragnani said, and rat<\/a> reports are also down citywide since the wheelie bins were rolled out at smaller buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"trashThe bins can only be opened with special tap cards distributed to building owners and staff. Photo courtesy of Ed Reed\/Mayoral Photography Office<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data shows that containerization works!\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the fall of 2025, the City Council passed Brooklyn Council Member Crystal Hudson\u2019s Intro. 1123-B, codifying and setting guidelines for the containerization program. The bill also set up a funding plan, Hudson explained, and allows DSNY to collect a $55 fee per tenant per year from larger buildings. That fee won\u2019t be collected from the jump, but is there as a stopgap in case of future issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould there ever become a budget issue that would make it more difficult for the sanitation department to provide the service, charging the fee basically makes the program permanent \u2026\u00a0 and allows people to receive the service sort of continuously, no matter what,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hudson, whose District 35 overlaps with CB2 and will be part of the containerization rollout, said she was inspired to introduce the bill after she traveled to Barcelona and saw the on-street containers they have in place there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just was like, \u2018Wow, imagine a world where there are no trash bags on the street,\u2019\u201d she said.\u00a0 I\u2019ve passed by heaps of trash bags that are bigger than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"crystalCouncil Member Crystal Hudson introduced the bill that codified citywide containerization. Photo courtesy of Emil Cohen\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

Her district suffered with such severe rat problems that her office launched a community Rat Task Force<\/a> that has worked to secure rat-proof bins and educate commercial businesses on containerization laws in an effort to deter the rodents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

So far, she said, reception has been positive \u2014 even among residents who are concerned about losing parking spaces to the bins. Restler has seen the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some concern about loss of parking, but my sense is that most neighbors see the Empire Bins and containerization of garbage as a big win for our neighborhoods,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lara Birnback, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, used to live in a suburban neighborhood in Spain where household trash was gathered in shared bins on the street. Containerization is \u201ca positive shift,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, I understand that people have a lot of questions, and it\u2019s something new, and it\u2019s a pilot so inevitably there will be things about it that work very well, and things about it that don\u2019t necessarily worked, or that need to be tweaked, or could be improved,\u201d Birnback said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some neighbors have expressed concern about the way the bins look, she said. She\u2019s sympathetic, but said \u201cneither are rats or leaking bags of garbage particularly attractive on our streets.\u201d The BHA will listen closely to resident experiences and liaise with elected officials and DSNY if changes need to be made once the bins arrive, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"dsnySide-loading trucks can automatically grab and dump the Empire Bins.Photo courtesy of Ed Reed\/Mayoral Photography Office<\/p>\n

Hudson said full containerization will be a \u201cslow roll,\u201d and it will take some time before the Empire Bins are deployed across the entire city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to sort of ramp up the program, and also the sanitation department will be investing in a whole new fleet of sanitation trucks that will be compatible with these bins,\u201d she said. \u201cI think they\u2019ll be a little bit smaller in terms of their physical footprint \u2026 and I think it\u2019s gonna ease the physical requirements of the sanitation workers a little bit. That\u2019s something I\u2019m particularly excited about.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trash bags piled up on the sidewalk on collection day will soon be a thing of the past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[15608,98,115450,100,6748,6749,14261,99,4308,62103,115451,16814,8991,3076,18481,8893,79762,3012,92224,3075,9,24,12,370,63,6389,4304,46328,53060],"class_list":["post-304720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-boerum-hill","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-cb2","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-heights","tag-brooklyn-heights-association","tag-brooklyn-navy-yard","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-clinton-hill","tag-community-board-2","tag-containerization","tag-crystal-hudson","tag-department-of-sanitation","tag-downtown-brooklyn","tag-dsny","tag-dumbo","tag-empire-bins","tag-fort-greene","tag-lara-birnback","tag-lincoln-restler","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-rats","tag-trash","tag-trash-containerization","tag-vinegar-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}