By Scott Etkin
On Monday morning, the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) received the unanimous approval of the New York City Public Design Commission to continue testing Empire Bins – the big containers that store trash from large residential buildings for collection – in Morningside Heights and the rest of District 9, including Hamilton Heights and parts of Harlem.
Since June, District 9 has been the site of a DSNY pilot program to test Empire Bins, an alternative to piling trash bags directly on the street for collection. The pilot, originally planned for one year, received support from the commission, which reviews projects in the city’s public spaces, to extend its timeline, with the condition that DSNY returns to provide updates, especially as the seasons change.
For Upper West Siders living in the northern part of the neighborhood (above West 110th Street), Empire Bins are already a familiar sight. DSNY has installed 1,100 of them throughout District 9, which averages around 10 per block.
While the bins are heavy (the side-loading collection trucks can lift 3,000 pounds), the installation process was relatively quick. 50 to 60 bins were installed per day, said Neil Eisenberg, DSNY deputy commissioner of strategic initiatives, in a presentation to the commission.
It’s still the early days for the bins, which have been in operation for less than three months. But they appear to be having an effect, with rat sightings down 8% in the area, Eisenberg said.
It also appears that the bins allow for collections to be made faster. An Empire Bin can be emptied by a side-loading truck in about a minute, Eisenberg said, whereas sanitation workers putting the same amount of trash in the truck by hand could take five minutes or more – though more detailed analysis of this timing is being conducted.
Eisenberg highlighted some challenges and lessons learned from operating the bins so far. For example, collection can be blocked if cars park too close to the bins or double park in front of them. The proposed solutions include more stable posts surrounding the bins, adjusted collection schedules, and enforcement.
“We’ve dealt with these issues,” said Eisenberg. “But I will tell you, I don’t consider them issues. I consider these [the] reality of operating in New York City.”
Each Empire Bin is dedicated to a specific residential building and can only be unlocked by that building’s staff or super. Empire Bins are mandatory for buildings with more than 30 units. Medium-sized buildings (10 to 30 units) get to choose to use Empire Bins or smaller, wheeled bins. Half of the buildings of this size in District 9 opted-in to using Empire Bins.
While the commission voted unanimously to approve continued testing of the bins in District 9 beyond May 2026, there was discussion of some of the trade-offs. For example, an Empire Bin is on the street 24/7, whereas trash bags are placed out for collection twice per week.
Eisenberg noted that because Empire Bins are locked, building staff can use them to store trash, rather than in building basements, and reallocate that space for other uses.
There was also discussion of how the bins are maintained. DSNY is responsible for cleaning the bins themselves (a team regularly follows behind the collection truck to wash the inside) and underneath the bins. They sit 1.3 inches off the ground and can be elevated by the collection trucks to clean the area underneath. Staff from the building that uses the bin is responsible for cleaning the curb space surrounding it.
The commission also raised questions about how the bins would perform in the snow. The bins and collection trucks are designed to work in these conditions (similar systems are used in northern European cities that also get cold weather).
And while the current pilot has only operated this summer, a previous experiment in containerization that ran from September 2023 to April 2025 was able to operate throughout the winter months. That pilot used a slightly different type of large bin to store trash from schools in Hamilton Heights. Over this period, rat sightings declined 73%.
Empire Bins dedicated to recycling and compost, in addition to trash, are used at schools in the pilot area. For residents, Empire Bins are currently only used for trash. There aren’t imminent plans to use Empire Bins residentially for other types of waste (compost is already containerized in smaller bins).
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Love this and anything that reduces rats:
Here’s where my mind goes:
What happens to the rats? Are they just migrating north/south? What happens then if these bins are everywhere? Do they die out? Retreat into the park? What else do they eat beyond our scraps?
(This is not intended to suggest something bad will happen, just genuinely curious!)
i and others see more and more rats in riverside park. leftover food is on benches (pizza was once on top of a garbage bin!).
Riverside Park needs a Full Rat Remediation program ASAP — the Rats are in all the playgrounds and in the baby carriages. There needs to be a major commitment by NYC to get rid of the rats in Riverside Park with a Three tiered Approach — Many more traps that are emptied Frequently. rely much more closed lid Garbage containers that are emptied Frequently. And An ABSOLUTE LAW put in place that the Park is a NO Garbage AREA with Folks responsible to Taking their own trash out of the Park and putting them in RECEPTACLES on Riverside BLVD. The parents who order PIZZAS to the park need to bring Huge Garbage BAGS and TAKE THEM OUT OF THE PARK and PUT them in CONTAINERS THAT Are RAT proof. Every single garden and every single Playground in Riverside Park has seen an increase of HUGE Rats this summer. This is a Major Health Violation. The Riverside Park Conservancy cannot do this on their own. The Rats / Coyotes and Raccoons are now sited and walking throough the Upper West Side From Central Park and transversing our streets — Broadway/ West End Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue have all had Raccoons, COYOTES, and HUGE Rats in the middle of blocks. Please keep the children and elderly people who need to walk on the street safe from the disease that these animals carry and spread to humans. Thank you. Mandami is out of his league on this one,
Rats have very short lifespans ae very short and their litter sizes are very heavily influenced by the availability of resources. So while the current batch may spread looking for food, the lack of easy food will drive the population down significantly.
Well, the first couple steps the rats find another place or block to go to . Rats exhibit behaviors consistent with both migration and breeding, driven by their adaptable nature and survival instincts slowing down migrating because less food available.
The rats try to sneak in and they have their condo underneath just like the dining sheds. No one has openly dispelled that, just saying that rat sightings are down which sounds good on the surface but is weaponized as part of a continued culture war on private vehicle owners.
lol this is an atrocious take on all fronts. sure, why not pull in some totally unsubstantiated grievances about outdoor dining while you’re at it
and all in service of arguing for giving away (more) public space to private cars — for free! even setting aside the substantial concerns around traffic, air pollution, and safety that come along with car culture, this city’s space should belong to people, not cars
fantastic stuff ralph, keep up the good work
People drive cars. People who drive cars in Manhattan typically have very good reasons for doing so. In fact it’s the UWS resident who spends $4000 a month on a 1 bed and uses Uber and Lyft on the regular that benefits from this culture war on private cars the most while others suffer.
“Weaponized as part of a continued culture war on private vehicle owners” – copying social justice language to whine about the “culture” of free parking spaces being oppressed sounds more ridiculous than anything on the Left.
It is a fact, urbanists have made cars a culture war. They asked for a culture war and they got one. It is also a fact that the same big donor for anti car causes in NYC is also the same donor to RFK Jr and anti vaccine causes too.
Can you tell me more about Parking Culture? I want to learn more about how they are being victimized, who is oppressing them, and why!
Can you tell me more about how urbanists are good at projection?
Since we are all supposed to be composting now there should be no food in anyone’s garbage. Why would the rats want the garbage?
Agreed. Our 50 unit building on Riverside in the 90’s has strongly encouraged composting, and it has made a significant difference in the rodent population around us.
You are absolutely right. Here are two sanitation programs in opposition to each other—composting (required) and this new container program that will not be necessary.
Absolutely. Composting works. We’re in a house in the 80s and have been composting for 4-5 years now. We’ve never seen a rat or a chewed hole in any of the trash we put out. There would be no need for ubiquitous — 3 types! — large wheeled containers at every house on the block, if people did the simple step of putting their rat food into brown bins.
I have seen some of these empire bins in action and rats still try to make their way through. The best policy solution to this is to have garbage collection times coincide with alternate side parking regulations and have garbage put out the morning of so that rats do not feast overnight.
You mean simply changing to and from Day Light Saving time does not confuse rats enough? Now you are going to switch them dinner with breakfast?
Serious question: if the bin’s locked, how does the rat get in?
It can’t. Unless its a magic rat. If Europe is anything to go by. Eventually the bin gets damaged at the bottom for one reason or another, which leads to rats getting in through there. The solution to that is simply fixing the broken bins.
Rats are nocturnal animals. Not only that rats can fit in holes and gaps you would be surprised they could fit into.
What does them being nocturnal have anything to do with them getting into a heavy-duty plastic container with a seamless bottom? Still confused how people think rats get into these things. (The comment above is right: the rats don’t get in, they don’t get food, and we see a sharp reduction in the rat population. But the Parking Justic Warriors can’t admit that anything that has an impact on parking could possibly have a benefit for the neighborhood as a whole. There is only a shadowy powerful force oppressing cars because they take joy in seeing them suffer.)
Let’s face it, you only want certain kinds of people on the UWS. That is the real issue. Why can’t you come up with a solution that both reduces rats and preserves parking in the community? It does not have to be one or the other.
Aren’t the Urbanists also pro-housing YIMBYs who want to see more housing in the neighborhood so that more people can live here? The people who are pro-car are much more likely to be NIMBYs who want to keep newcomers out. I personally want more homes for all types of people so they can live here without being dependent on cars.
Josh,
At this point, seems Urbanists are heavy users of food delivery, ecommerce and uber….
More housing so that more people who think like urbanists or otherwise fit into urbanist narratives can live here. I am not pretty sure urbanists would want me living on the UWS even if I could afford to live here.
Car dependency can be an oxymoron. What is really going on is instead of a good faith choice of modes, any perceived car dependency is being replaced with transit dependency, bike dependency, uber dependency, walking distance dependency. It is not about giving people more options, just making sure that people on the UWS and other in demand Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods don’t get to mix much with the rest of the metropolitan area.
I mean yes, more housing in urban areas would kind of by definition be for people who “think like urbanists” and want to live in urban areas. If you don’t want to live in an urban area, then don’t, but if you want to, we should have the option for the people who want to live an urbanist lifestyle without car dependency to live that life. There are lots of places where you can live that are built around cars, there are very very few neighborhoods where you’re not dependent on a car. Right now, there is more demand to live in urban areas than there is supply, so I think we should let people who want to live in an urban area have their little island of Manhattan.
You keep saying “people like you” are discriminated against – what is it about you that you fear is being discriminated against? And it sounds like you don’t really want to live in an urban area anyway?
Urbanists and even railfans tend to be very modal people. People who live in urban areas can be multi modal. On the UWS you do not need a car necessarily, but that depends on your particular life situation and your social and family circle and even work. Urbanists cannot be the arbiters of people’s life situation and who gets accommodated and who does not.
Urbanists have their little island of Manhattan, they also have an increasing share of Brooklyn and Queens too, they have Jersey City and Hoboken too. You can be able to live without a car if your life revolves around gentrified NYC. But you don’t want others with different lifestyles and different needs than you to have theirs and that is the problem. What’s next, telling people that they can’t have private outdoor space or that they can’t own a dog?
I’m just so curious what kind of lifestyle and needs you keep referring to that you think urbanists are discriminating against – having a social and family circle that doesn’t live in gentrified NYC? A lot of us have that!
The kind of lifestyle you want to restrict by allowing restaurants to build rat condos where parking spaces once were!
“An Empire Bin can be emptied by a side-loading truck in about a minute, Eisenberg said, whereas sanitation workers putting the same amount of trash in the truck by hand could take five minutes or more”
Good for traffic congestion if garbage trucks are able to complete their rounds more quickly and stop blocking streets.
The Empire bins have had a significant impact on the rat population – best idea from DSNY yet …~!
NYC should simply install the bins everywhere as fast as they can acquire and deploy them. Cities across Europe, Asia and Latin America have been using similar, perhaps even the exact same, systems for years. Many of those places have winter snow and street grids much like ours. Don’t let special interests get in the way of this push to rid our sidewalks of ugly trash bags and well-fed rats.
My Building would need about 30 of these taking almost half the block so what would the other 6 buildings do with there garbage. 450 apartments in our building
Strongly encouraging your residents to recycle and compost can reduce the amount of garbage dramatically.
It’s the special interests pushing containerizing of garbage as part of a culture war. Car owners do not have Mark Gorton’s millions.
Benny,
Also worth noting that MG has other homes and relies on vehicles in all sorts of ways….
Also worth noting that the Open Plans executive director is rumored to own or use an Audi SUV garaged on the UWS!
I live on 111th St which is part of the pilot and they are working extremely well. Rat sightings are down considerably. They appear well designed and much better than the alternative of garbage mountains and rats.
Same! Pretty much any rat I see now comes from Broadway. Specially from the new cafe which for some keeps putting trash out in bags.
What about huge buildings with hundreds of apartments? A full sidewalk of permanent bins? Any chance of more frequent pickups? And the compost question is the critical one: food waste is heavier, takes less space, but should have more frequent pickups. Recycling and non food trash, as one comment noted, should attract fewer rats. Would love to know the full plan for big building areas. (I know, wait for the next article!) In the meantime, go DSNY, yay bins.
It’s true!
The enclosed bins and containers are working and the rats are moving on!
We on W. 80th St. between Columbus Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue are experiencing over 50% + less rats this season than last year this time.
The biggest thing that has helped with the rat infestation on West 80th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam is that the Bluestone Lane got rid of its outdoor dining shed. That was the #1 source of rat issues on that block. I would literally see rats use the shed as home base to go under cars etc. on the rest of the block and there were dead rats even visible during the day in that shed while other customers were seated. I personally saw it.
You’re exactly right, it was a home rats many rat during the pandemic time, that’s why the health department and the City Of New York wanted all the sheds to come down and would charge cost for the permit and for a newinstalled shed.
Everybody’s fighting over space that should be given to trees. Cars, Citibikes, outdoor dining, etc etc etc. When will people wake up and realize we need TREES for survival. Also, go out and see how ‘clean’ the streets and sidewalks are. They’re a dirty mess because that’s what people want. Don’t blame it on people who kill themselves trying to keep the city clean. I don’t know why anybody complains about anything. Just ENJOY it.
Something not mentioned is the smell. This summer has been a massive improvement in terms of the stench coming out of trash bags.
So fewer rats and less stinky streets. I’d honestly consider chaining myself to my bin like a hippy to a tree, if they ever threaten to take it away.
Do you not smell the URINE on Every single Street from the people who continually Urinate on the Sidewalks or near the Tree Areas. On West End Avenue a man in a Car literally dropped a Bottle full of his own urine in our tree bed — How disgusting can human beings be? Dog Walkers also don’t realize that dogs urinating on the SIDES of Buildings is not the proper place for them to relieve themselves. CURB The DOGS — so the streets don’t have URINE intoxicating odors. Every other Civilized City has dog owners Observe CURB rules and not allow People to walk their dogs in the MIDDLE of the Sidewalks or on the SIDES of Private or Public Property. How about some FINES for NOT CURBING your dogs. Increase the Fees for Dog Licenses and make sure people have them.
Many buildings use scented trash bags.
That rats have won. We’re now a city of trash containers.
Put a $10.00 per rat bounty on rats and let free enterprise take over.
Bound to appeal to those looking to make a killing killing.
“The results of a perverse incentive scheme are also sometimes called cobra effects, where people are incentivized to make a problem worse. This name was coined by economist Horst Siebert based on an anecdote taken from the British Raj. The British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped. The cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population.”
One thing I love about this is how it may lessen the time and noise from garbage collection. Right now, my bins are collected in the middle of the night and it is terribly loud and goes on for 5-10 minutes as the garbage truck collects from my building and the building on the corner. Shrinking this even by half would be amazing.
I walk down West 75th Street late night dodging the rats. If this is working, we need it as soon as possible. The number of encounters per evening seems much higher over the years since the pandemic (maybe that’s just in my head) but there are many and they are big. I walk in the street on the nights when the garbage is ou.
The pandemic and outdoor dining made the situation worse. On 75th Street, it is the outdoor dining sheds that provide rats refuge. That’s the crux of the issue. Urbanists like manufacturing a problem (outdoor dining brought rats living under sheds) and then coming up with a solution to a problem that they manufactured (containerization of garbage in response to more rats because of outdoor dining). Either way, it is people who they don’t want in a community, people who own and drive private vehicles, out.
Having just moved from the West 80sn (no bins) to the west 140s (bins) I can say the difference is incredible–walking my dog at night used to be an obstacle course of rats; now we don’t see one. Massive difference.
I know people who live uptown and find the bins to be an eyesore.