Trash Containerization Program Remains Unfunded in Mamdani’s City Budget

Will trashbins end up in the trashbin of history?

Mayor Mamdani has yet to commit funding to the city’s nascent trash containerization program, which threatens to halt the Adams-era effort to clean up the Big Apple’s infamous piles of garbage and place them in curbside containers — a commonplace practice in other global cities.

The Department of Sanitation has rolled out the curbside enclosures – dubbed Empire Bins – in one city district uptown and at some Brooklyn schools, but neither the mayor nor the City Council have allocated funding for the so-called “Trash Revolution” so far.

The city has already inked a $25.4-million contract for new side-loader trucks and $7 million for the bins, but Adams never earmarked steady funding beyond a pilot program, according to reps for the Mamdani administration.

The new mayor supported the program and wanted to expand it while on the campaign trail, but he did not include it in his $127 billion preliminary budget in February. As he prepares his executive budget later this month, waste reform advocates are urging the new mayor to keep it going and make good on his election pledge.

“I strongly want them to continue containerizing waste and not lose the momentum that has been started,” said Clare Miflin, founder and executive director of the Center for Zero Waste Design. “But I also think it’s important to get it right for such a huge change.”

Mamdani’s freshly minted DSNY Commissioner, Greg Anderson, told Streetsblog that he met with Hizzoner and pushed for containerization funding on his first day of leading the agency on Monday.

“We’re having really productive conversations, and are expecting to continue those conversations through the executive budget process,” Anderson said. “There’s enough funding for what we’re currently operating. Obviously, we need to have conversations about expansion in the context of the budget.”

New York’s Strongest began collecting residential and school garbage from curbside containers in West Harlem’s Community District 9 with all new side-loading trucks last year, and then-Mayor Eric Adams instituted the same practice at schools in Brooklyn’s Community District 2 in the last months of his term. The remainder of that district — which covers areas around Downtown Brooklyn, Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights — is slated for later this year.

But that will only happen if the missing funds materialize – ditto for the remainder of the city, which the agency expects to cover by mid-2032.

The curbside program grew out of a comprehensive 2023 study and covers all buildings with 31 or more units, while those with 10-30 dwellings get to choose between Empire Bins or smaller, wheeled bins on the sidewalk. Around half of mid-size buildings in the uptown pilot opted for street containers. The curbside bins are locked with key cards and only accessible to DSNY and building superintendents.

Housing with nine units or fewer have had to switch to wheelie bins across the five boroughs since 2024. Recycling still goes in bags on the sidewalk.

Miflin has long advocated for DSNY to enable smaller and middle-sized buildings to also use shared Empire Bins, along with enabling larger buildings to use roll-out dumpsters on collection days. “My hope is that [the Mamdani administration] will take the time to pilot some of our suggestions,” she said.

The Council did not include containerization funding in its own budget response published on Wednesday — but Speaker Julie Menin continues to back the effort, according to a spokesperson. “Speaker Menin strongly supports trash containerization and believes it is critical to improving quality of life across the city,” said Henry Robins in a statement.

Mamdani endorsed the program while running for office, and expressed familiarity with its quirks. He said the city “missed [an] opportunity” to allow recycling to be containerized and supported the ability of smaller buildings to share curbside containers, according to a candidate questionnaire by The City. Containerization was one of the rare policies for which Mamdani praised his predecessor.

Repurposing free parking for private vehicles will be a political lift in the face of the entitled driving class, but even the normally car-friendly Adams said the bins were a “good trade-off.”

Miflin said that rubbish containerization could become a key plank for Mamdani’s agenda of equity, by showing that government can solve real problems and bring an end to the city’s decades-old struggle to manage its waste.

“Mayors can fail if the people can see that it’s dirtier and more litter-strewn. That affects how good a job people think the city is doing,” Miflin said. “Well-funded [business improvement districts] and buildings keep sidewalks clean, but areas in the city that don’t have those resources have more litter and dirtier streets.”

A spokesman for Mamdani said that his pick of Anderson to lead DSNY showed his commitment to containerization.

“From restarting composting efforts to appointing a DSNY veteran and architect of the ‘trash revolution’ as his sanitation commissioner, the Mayor has already demonstrated his deep respect and belief in the work of New York’s Strongest,” said Jeremy Edwards in a statement. “From snow removal to waste management, we will continue to deliver for New Yorkers across the five boroughs.”