NEW YORK (PIX11) — New York City officials announced the next phase in the war on rats and trash.
Starting in March of 2024, all businesses in the five boroughs will have to use a solid trash can with a secure lid when throwing out garbage—no more black bags on the sidewalks.
In August, the city started requiring all restaurants, bodegas and bars with food to use a trash can with a lid. In September, that rule was extended to include all chain stores.
The city Sanitation Department also recently installed large stationary trash containers in parking spots outside residential buildings on about 10 blocks in Hamilton Heights.
PIX11 News visited West 147th Street off Amsterdam Avenue to check it out.
“There’s a lot of rats in New York. This is actually great for the neighborhood, so this would be perfect if they put it everywhere, even in Lower Manhattan,” Fabrice Aurelius, who lives nearby, told PIX 11 News.
“Rat sightings down 20% this summer compared to last year and down 45% in the city’s Rat Mitigation Zones,” Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant/Bushwick, and East Village/Chinatown are those areas.
An approximately 100-page report published by DSNY this past spring, “The Future of Trash,” provided the first-ever detailed, block-by-block analysis of what it would take to get black bags of trash off city streets.
