Mayor Mamdani: Trash Containerization Protects Sanitation Workers

The cost of New York City’s free parking is Sanitation workers’ health.

The city’s effort to move trash from bags on the sidewalk into bins on the street will make Sanitation jobs less physically taxing and less exposed to reckless driving, Mayor Mamdani and a union leader said on Thursday.

DSNY is expanding its “Empire Bins” waste collection program, which relies on side-loading collection trucks to lift and empty curbside containers. The trucks help mitigate the risks of a job that is among the most dangerous in the country.

“If we continue down this path of using these black trash bags, what we will see are continuations of injuries to workers who are doing their best to make the best city in the world the cleanest city in the world,” Mamdani said at a press conference in Brooklyn Heights. “I think we owe it to them to use every strategy we have to make their job a little safer and a little easier.”

Hizzoner and Sanitation Department officials installed the first residential Empire Bin in Brooklyn on a quiet block of the tony enclave on Thursday, after testing out the new initiative outside schools in the area’s Community District 2 over the last year.

It’s the second section of the city to get the new bins, after former Mayor Eric Adams launched the effort in West Harlem’s Community Board 9 last year.

Sanitation workers are exposed to a plethora of dangers on the job, from sharp objects in bags to drivers crashing into them as they haul piles of them across the street. Refuse and recyclable material collectors rank fifth for highest fatal work injuries, according the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The new mechanized side-loading trucks mitigate a lot of these issues, according to the head of the union representing Sanmen.

“They’re not in the back of the trucks where it could be hazardous, getting hit by cars from operating a conventional truck… and these mechanical arms, it’s much easier on their backs and shoulders, and it’s also safer,” Teamsters Local 831 President Dennis Schock said at the mayor’s press conference. “You know what? This is something that should be done and should happen all over the city.”

Crashes and serious injuries dropped 15 percent and 52 percent respectively after DSNY deployed the bins uptown, Streetsblog previously reported.

Containerized waste collection is commonplace in cities across the globe, from Buenos Aires to Barcelona, but the City that Never Sleeps has long lagged behind its peers.

Former Mayor Eric Adams set out to change that with the containerization efforts in the name of his obsession to curb the city’s rat population, and Mamdani put more city funding behind it after taking office this year.

“It is time that New York City follows the best practices of leading cities across the world,” Mamdani said. “For too long, we have allowed an exceptionalism in our politics to justify mediocrity that really isn’t acceptable.”

DSNY’s Empire Bin program is mandatory for residential buildings with 31 or more units, but optional for those with 10-30 apartments. The latter can also opt for wheelie bins that go on the sidewalk, which are already required for all smaller housing stock with up to nine units. DSNY plans to allow smaller building to share Empire Bins in the future.

The bins have been one of the few bright spots of the otherwise car-focused Adams administration. They reduced the amount of stinky garbage on the sidewalk and also cleared up space on the foot paths. All these benefits came at the low low cost of repurposing a mere 5 percent of the city’s three million — largely free — parking spaces, or about 150,000 spots, DSNY has estimated.

The agency plans to roll out 700 bins at residences by the end of the fall across the Brooklyn district, which in addition to the Heights also includes Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, Fulton Ferry, Vinegar Hill, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.

Mamdani committed to expanding the program citywide by the end of 2031, two years after the end of his first term.

Next up in 2027 are Bronx Community Districts 2 around Hunts Point and 5 in Fordham Heights, Queens Community District 2 in Sunnyside, Manhattan Community District 2 in Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Community District 8 in Crown Heights, and Staten Island Community District 1 on the North Shore.