NYC's war on rats: Mayor Adams announces new rules requiring trash to be in 'secured, lidded container'

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday the latest steps in a crackdown on rats throughout the five boroughs, with new trash laws that take effect March 1.

“We’ve declared that rats are Public Enemy Number One — but we’re not stopping there,” Adams said. “We’re also going after the black trash bags that litter our streets, aiding and abetting rodents.”

The new laws, which require all trash to be in “a secured, lidded container” as of March 1, are aimed at getting trash bags off the street, something the Adams administration said is designed to improve the quality of life throughout the boroughs. The effort has been called “Get Stuff Clean” — and the idea, the mayor’s office said, is to “reclaim public space,” as the administration vows a move toward “full containerization” citywide. Officials said those efforts over the course of the past 20 months have led to rat sightings being down 20% this summer alone.

“The notion that the greatest city in the world could not move its trash into wheelie bins was always patently absurd,” New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “But that’s the type of thinking that allowed the rats to thrive and our streets to reek for over 50 years.”

Tisch said in less than a year since the effort began, “the Adams administration will have moved half of all of New York City’s trash — nearly 20 million pounds a day — from black bags into bins. And we’re going hard after the rest.”

Since July 30, all food-related businesses — restaurants, caterers, grocery stores, delis and bodegas — have been required to “containerize” waste. That is, have their garbage in lidded containers, instead of trash bags.

As of Sept. 5, the rule expanded to cover all chain business with five or more locations in the city.

The mayor’s office said a pilot program is underway at 14 schools — and on 10 residential blocks in Hamilton Heights, Manhattan — to foster what the city has called “residential containerization and mechanized collection.” The idea is to do away with trash bags, which officials said rats and other rodents can chew through, and make trash out for collection on city streets more organized, more secure and less susceptible to rats.

Officials said that during a one-month warning period for businesses covered by the new rules, more than 22,000 warnings were issued for those not following the new guidelines. Moving forward, such violations will result in summonses, the city has pledged.

The goal is to eventually have 100% of all businesses in the city containerizing their trash. That goal includes residential garbage.

“Today’s rule marks a historic change for the cleanliness of our sidewalks and another battle won in the war on rats,” Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a statement. “Every single New York City business will be required to containerize their trash — that’s 20 million pounds of waste a day that will now be neatly secured in bins instead of piled onto the sidewalk in leaky bags.”

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”