Transcript: Mayor Adams, Sanitation Commissioner Tisch Unveil First-ever Official NYC Bin For Trash Pick Up, Release Timeline For Residential Containerization Of All One To Nine Unit Buildings

July 8, 2024

Mayor Eric Adams: Welcome to our trash revolution, and no one does it better than our amazing commissioner. Commissioner Tisch, you have really taken on this job with the level of energy that we wanted. We could not have expected any greater achievements when it comes down to ensuring our city is a cleaner and healthier place to be. 

When you look at the billions of pounds of trash we remove off our streets annually, many people thought it was impossible that these babies here, the bins, were going to be part of our trash revolution. We're only catching up to what other municipalities across the globe, what they are currently doing. We needed a visionary, and we got one with Commissioner Tisch. I cannot thank her enough. 

We came into office, we said over and over again with clear priorities, public safety, livability and an affordable city for working class people. No one is concerned more about the trash and the garbage bags that have often been the feeder of our visual, just really total visual despair when it comes down to cleanliness. Than working class people, they see it in their communities, they see it in their neighborhoods. 

We all have one unified dislike, and those are those pesky New York City rats. They're getting more and more bold. They no longer run from you. They just hang out and just do what they want. We want to make sure we change that in a real way. We had a real partner in the northern part of our city, Councilman Abreu who has been really a champion around making sure that we can move these initiatives forward because anytime you have change you get a lot of pushback but he has been pushing with us to make it happen. 

We're ready to do whatever it takes to cut these rodents and the mounds and mounds of plastic bags off our street and so I'm excited to stand with the councilman and the commissioner and build on those efforts by tossing even more black bags in the dustbins of history and taking the next steps forward in our trash revolution. 

Starting November 12th, buildings with one to nine residential units will be required to put their trash into wheelie bins like this one here. They will be required to make sure that they're in, they're sealed, these are durable, they are attractive and New York affordable. We're really excited about this initiative. It is a game changer for our city, and we will not satisfy with making New Yorkers go out and buy their own bins at retail costs. We're going to do it on the cheap. These bins are less than $50 apiece, and they will last for a long time. 

We're really concerned about the unified way we're doing it. If you look in the front, you'll see the little silver bar here is because that's going to make it easier for our new trucks to pick up the bins and make it easier for our members of the Department of Sanitation as Commissioner Tisch will go into that a little after I finish. It has been for too long the public space has been hijacked. We all see it, mounds and mounds and mounds of plastic bags. 

When I go abroad and when I visit other countries, they are blown away that we still use plastic bags. We are leaders. We lead from the front, and we're going to catch up with everyone else and make sure we get these plastic bags off our streets. That is why, as of November 12th, our administration will have containerized 70 percent of our city's 14 billion pounds of annual trash. We're accomplishing this in only two years. People told us it was going to take five years. 

We're doing it within a two-year period, and think about it. That's nearly 10 billion pounds of trash each year that we won't see or smell. They won't cut our sidewalks. They won't ruin our days when rats run across and out of our garbage. It is a real revolution. This is a rat-proof container and it's going to do the job. 

This is just to add with our revolution already that the commission has accomplished. Change set out times for residential commercial waste so trash doesn't sit on our streets for hours on end. A brand new garbage truck that we created years ahead of schedule to pick up these bins, another form of garbage and a playbook to get containerization done for every building and every business in New York City and so much more. 

We only want the best for our city and the best starts with having a clean city and you cannot have a clean city without a visionary that understands that cleanliness and that is what Commissioner Tisch has brought to this game. Thank you so much. I want to turn it over to you commissioner.

Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Department of Sanitation: Thank you Mayor Adams. I believe that New York City is exceptional, that our streets and our people are unlike any other on earth. Too often, New York City exceptionalism is used as an excuse. For decades, that was the case with the management of our trash. 

As other cities got it off the streets and into bins and containers, we were told that couldn't happen here. Our neighborhoods were too dense, our sidewalks too narrow. Mayor Adams believes, and I agree, that to bring dignity and order back to every street, every neighborhood, and every borough, we need to start by getting rid of the black bags of trash. People wonder why we have a rat problem in this city. Well duh, maybe it's because historically we've left 16 billion pounds of trash out for them to eat every year. That seems like a good place to start. 

At the mayor's direction, we studied what other cities have done. We conducted a detailed volumetric analysis of our trash, and we developed a model that is going to make containerization of all trash work in New York City. Because we can, we must, and we will do better. In just two years, we've implemented containerization requirements for half of all trash, the half produced by New York City's businesses. Today we're unveiling the first container requirements for residents, reversing decades of primacy of the black bags of trash and doing it thoughtfully. 

Starting November 12, 2024, all buildings in New York City with one to nine residential units will have to put their trash in a bin. This means, as the mayor said, that 70 percent of all trash in New York City will be covered by containerization requirements. There are 765,000 residential buildings in New York City, and 95 percent of them have fewer than nine units. Of those, about half are single-family homes, and many of these buildings already use bins to set out their trash. 

To those property owners and managers, I have great news. Bins just got a whole lot cheaper. The new official NYC bin that we are unveiling today and that is on sale now, durable, equipped with wheels and a secure rodent-resistant latching lid, is the cheapest bin of its quality available, with prices below $50 for the most common size. Bins like this often sell for two to three times the price at retail stores. 

As of this moment, the official NYC bin, this beautiful, rat-fighting piece of engineering, is available to order at www.bins.nyc. If you are one of the hundreds of thousands of property owners in that group who already has a bin of 55 gallons or less with a secure lid, you are welcome to continue to use that bin until June of 2026, when the use of the official NYC bin will become mandatory for these buildings, facilitating safer, faster, and cleaner collection. If you don't already have a bin, get the new NYC bin for far, far, less than you would otherwise be paying, and do that before November 12th.

The mayor mentioned that using these bins is going to be great for our workforce, for the heroes at the New York City Department of Sanitation. Fully 50 percent of our line of duty injuries, our injuries that our sanitation workers sustain on the job, are strains and sprains from lifting. These bags come equipped with a bar in front that will allow the sanitation workers to attach them to tippers that we are putting on the backs of our standard sanitation trucks so that they can be mechanically tipped. 

While the requirements of this new rule only cover trash and compostable material, matching green and blue NYC bins are also available for purchase for any property owner or manager who prefers a matched set for their recycling as well. 

As for the other 30 percent of New York City trash produced by our largest residential buildings, we are coming for that too. In the spring of 2025, we will be installing on-street containers to address this final frontier of the fight against the black bags. Beginning in one district, Manhattan Community Board 9, we have a plan to make West Harlem look like Barcelona, complete with large on-street containers and automated side-loading trucks. 

In addition to buildings with one to nine residential units, the rule put forth today also closes another loophole around containerization, covering special-use buildings like city agencies, houses of worship, or professional offices in residential buildings. Because New York City is exceptional, but our exceptionalism cannot be bound by the status quo, especially when the status quo has for too long been mediocrity. I do not accept that, and I know that Mayor Adams does not accept it either. 

To anyone who owns or manages a property with one to nine residential units, get ready for the trash containerization mandate effective November 12th by visiting www.bins.nyc today. Order by October 1st to guarantee delivery before the rule goes into effect and get ready to roll out your gorgeous new wheelie bins. Now it is my pleasure to introduce a real partner in the war on the black bags, Council member and sanitation chair, Shaun Abreu.

Council Member Shaun Abreu: Thank you, Mayor Adams, and thank you, Commissioner Tisch. Barcelona is coming to West Harlem. Look, today's announcement means that come this November, containers are going to be required for 70 percent of all trash in New York City. Just two years after we first announced that New York City was changing out, set out times on our streets. 

Containerizing trash has been so much faster than anyone thought possible, certainly a lot faster than I thought this would become a reality, and we are ready to keep going so that we get rid of all the piles of black bags on our streets. It's a miracle that finally New York City is doing away with black bags on our streets, and this administration is helping get that done. The work we're doing together to get trash into containers is about making sure our neighborhoods are safe and clean. I'm excited to see these bins hit our streets. Thank you again.

Question: Thank you. What are the fines going to be for people who don't comply with the new rules?

Commissioner Tisch: As we've rolled out containerization requirements, we've always done a grace period, a warning period where we hand out, usually it's about one month, tens of thousands of warnings. They look a lot like summonses and that is on purpose and not so that people will pay so people will feel the impact of it. After the grace period and the warning period are done, the fines start at $50.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. Can I ask you, can I ask an off-topic? Will he do off-topic? 

Mayor Adams: Yeah, tomorrow.

Question: Can we ask about the senior Democrats, including Congressman Nadler, asking the president to withdraw from the presidential race? [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes, listen, I know what it is to have a bad day, a bad night, a bad moment, and people define you by that. I've been extremely clear. There's a process right now he's moving towards nominee, and I'm going to stay focused. My  goal is to remove the trash off our streets and not talk trash about national politics. 

Question: Did you watch the George Stephanopoulos interview? What did you think?

Mayor Adams: I think that we're going to see the campaign season move forward. You know what I learned during this campaign season is there are ups and there's downs, there's twists and there's turns. I would say to the president and whomever else, stay focused, no distractions, and grind. Thank you.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Commissioner Tisch: Yes, so these containers are for residential trash. They're for everything from the single family home up to the nine unit brownstone building. Businesses are already under a mandate to put their trash in containers and they can use whatever size bins they want. 

As for the residential containers, they come in two sizes. This is the smaller size for small single-family homes, and we also have a larger size available for larger nine-unit buildings. Some buildings may require more than one container.

Question: Yes, sorry. When it comes to the garbage trucks that are picking up these types of containers, does that mean that by 2026 all garbage trucks will be equipped to pick up these types of containers and what was the investment there?

Commissioner Tisch: In New York City we're going to have two different types of garbage trucks. The standard garbage trucks that you are accustomed to today we call them our rear loaders. We are going to order all new rear loading trucks with a mechanical tipper that we place on the back of them so that the sanitation workers can attach the bin to the tipper and mechanically tip the bin into the truck. 

For the higher density parts of the city, when we get to buildings of 30 units or more, what we're contemplating doing up in West Harlem this spring, we're going to be using a special type of truck. It's called an automated side loading truck and those trucks hoist these large four cubic yard on street containers. Those will be the two different types of trucks that we'll use depending on the size of the building that they're servicing.