NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) Acting Commissioner Javier Lojan today announced that Brooklyn Community District 2 will be the second neighborhood in the city to have all its trash fully containerized in the Adams administration’s revolutionary Empire Bins, building on the incredible success of the containerization of all trash in West Harlem. DSNY will install stationary, on-street containers — known as Empire Bins — at schools in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill this fall and extend the popular program to all schools and high-density residential buildings in the community district next year. The milestone announcement comes as rats continue to flee New York City: in each of the nine months since low-density residential containerization requirements went into effect last year, rat sightings reported to 311 have declined when compared to the same month the previous year.

“Our ‘Trash Revolution’ is delivering cleaner streets, a better quality of life, and nine straight months of fewer rat sightings. The rats are losing — and Brooklyn is next,” said Mayor Adams. “As the rats crash out, we are ramping up. Today, we are proud to launch the next phase of the ‘Trash Revolution’: the Battle of Brooklyn. Following the success of Community Board 9 in West Harlem, our administration is bringing Empire Bins to Fort Greene and Clinton Hill this fall and expanding citywide in 2026. Every day, we are making our city cleaner, safer, and a better place to raise a family, unless you’re a rat.”

“Bin by bin, we are proving the naysayers wrong and showing the world that New York City can have clean streets and sidewalks, just like cities around the world have done for decades,” said DSNY Acting Commissioner Lojan. “I have seen a lot of innovation in my 26 years with the Sanitation Department, but containerizing trash using on-street containers is by far the most significant. I am thrilled to be bringing this pilot to a second borough, and I look forward to ongoing evaluation and continued expansion.”

The expansion announced today covers schools and higher-density buildings in Brooklyn Community Board 2. DSNY will assign Empire Bins to schools and all buildings with more than 30 units, and Empire Bins will be accessible to property managers with a key card. Buildings with 10 to 30 units will be given an option — after extensive one-to-one outreach — to either have an Empire Bin assigned to them or use smaller “wheelie bins” as all properties with one to nine units are already required to do citywide.

The initial West Harlem pilot utilized roughly 1,100 Empire Bins to store trash from schools and high- and some mid-density residential buildings. The Empire Bins are serviced by North America’s first automated side-loading truck, which DSNY was able to have built years ahead of schedule by developers from Torino, Italy, and Hicksville and Brooklyn, New York. These trucks — which only take two sanitation workers to operate — have been running on the streets of West Harlem since April.

Today’s announcement is another step forward in Mayor Adams’ Trash Revolution — the citywide effort to move trash from black bags on the sidewalk to rat-resistant, closed containers:

In October 2022, the Adams administration kicked off the Trash Revolution by announcing a change to set-out times for both residential and commercial waste from 4:00 PM — one of the earliest set-out times in the country — to 8:00 PM beginning in April 2023, while also allowing earlier set-out if the material is in a container. This incentivization of containerization was paired with major changes to DSNY operations, picking up well over a quarter of all trash at 12:00 AM rather than 6:00 AM, particularly in high density parts of the city, and ending a practice by which up to one-fifth of trash had been purposefully left out for a full day.

In April 2023, DSNY published the “Future of Trash” report, the first meaningful attempt to study containerization models in New York City, and the playbook to get it done.

In August 2023, containerization requirements went into effect for all food-related businesses in New York City. These businesses — restaurants, delis, bodegas, bars, grocery stores, caterers, and more — produce an outsized amount of the type of trash that attracts rats.

That same month, installation of the initial 10-block, 14-school, Manhattan Community Board 9 pilot containers began.

In September 2023, commercial containerization requirements extended to chain businesses of any type with five or more locations in New York City. These chain businesses tend to produce a large total volume of trash.

In February 2024, Mayor Adams unveiled a new, automated, side-loading garbage truck and a new data-driven containerization strategy, affirming a commitment from Mayor Adams’ 2024 State of the City address to set New York City on the course to store all trash put out for pickup in containers. This truck was unveiled four years earlier than industry experts thought possible.

In March 2024, container requirements went into effect for all businesses — of every type — in New York City to get their trash off the streets and into secure bins.

In November 2024, container requirements went into effect for low-density residential buildings — those with one to nine units — containerizing approximately 70 percent of all trash in the city.

In May 2025, Mayor Adams committed over $32 million in permanent funding for DSNY to keep New York City clean as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget, better known as the “Best Budget Ever.” This decision permanently allocates resources to key aspects of Mayor Adams’ cleanliness agenda, establishing permanent high levels of funding to protect the cleanliness and quality of life of city neighborhoods for generations to come.

In June 2025, Mayor Adams announced that — following the installation of approximately 1,100 on-street containers for residential trash from the largest buildings — 100 percent of trash in Manhattan Community Board 9 is now covered by containerization requirements.