New city rules requiring all businesses across the five boroughs to put their trash in secure lidded containers took effect on Friday.
The move is part of Mayor Eric Adams’ broader effort to put trash in sealed containers before it is picked up by the Sanitation Department, rather than leaving it in black garbage bags piled on sidewalks, where rodents can easily make a meal of the refuse inside.
“It’s about cleanliness, visualization and dealing with the unsightliness of rodents and garbage in our city,” the mayor said during an interview on Fox5 Friday morning.
Adams said that while many estimated that containerizing all of the city’s garbage would take four to five years, his administration has been able to shift almost 50% of it from black bags to bins in just two years.
The rules will affect all of the roughly 200,000 businesses in the Big Apple, said Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch, which collectively produce 20 million pounds of trash each day. Similar requirements were rolled out for food-related businesses — like bodegas and restaurants — and chain stores in the fall.
While the mandate takes effect Friday, Tisch said businesses that are out of compliance will be issued warnings by the city to purchase the required wheeled bins for storing their trash.
“This is a very easy rule to comply with,” Tisch said. “It’s very easy to buy the bins. If you’re a business owner and you don’t have the bins yet, you can go out and get them. Your private carter can provide them, usually within 24 hours. There are lots of different options.”
However, once April 1 rolls around, she said, the city will begin fining business owners who are not following the rules. The fines start at $50 for first-time violations and then rise to $100 and $200 upon second and third-time infractions respectively.
The sanitation commissioner said the system has worked well in previous phases, with most business owners coming into compliance within the month-long warning period.
Tisch said each phase of the rollout has involved extensive communication with business owners before the rules have taken effect.
“We went door-to-door to every food‑related business in the city before those rules started, we did information sessions,” Tisch said. “And we’ve gone door to door now with the rest of the businesses before this phase has started.”
The mayor is also moving to containerize trash from residential buildings.
This fall, apartment buildings with nine-or-fewer units will have to place their trash in wheeled bins. Additionally, the city will launch a pilot program to containerize garbage from large residential buildings — those with 31-or-more units — in Upper Manhattan next spring, the mayor announced last month.
