Giant trash bins land in Harlem: Will they fight rats or just take up parking?

New York City’s latest experiment to become cleaner began this week with the installation of giant garbage, recycling and compost bins outside of two Harlem school buildings. But early community reaction suggests the containers may not be well liked, given the amount of parking spots they occupy as well as concerns around hygiene.

The installations are part of a pilot program announced this May that was modeled after European-style shared street bins for collecting garbage bags, in hopes of eliminating sidewalk trash mountains and reducing rats' food supply. A similar pilot project with communal bins launched last year but only for use by businesses.

Likewise, this first set of new containers is not for the public and is reserved for the Department of Education’s use, but more will be installed for residents around Harlem throughout the fall, according to the sanitation department. The $5.6 million pilot project will eventually include 14 schools and 10 residential blocks. But residents are already sounding the alarm at how much space this will take up, particularly for parking, with little notice.

On Wednesday evening, a white sanitation truck drove up to the 8-foot-wide bins outside of P.S./I.S. 210 on West 152nd Street in Harlem. Instead of scooping out and flinging bags into the garbage truck, a pair of workers wheeled the bins to the back, where retrofitted mechanical arms lifted the container and tilted the refuse into the hopper. The May announcement included an internal sanitation department study that called for a new type of collection truck to handle the giant containers.

While the Harlem pilot program uses modified trucks from the sanitation department’s current fleet, the city expects that a new truck design will be created because there is no U.S. model of truck with “side loaders” strong enough to lift New York City's bins, which are heavy because of the city's density.

European garbage trucks with this side-loading feature “do not meet federal, state, and local emissions and safety standards so they cannot be imported for domestic use,” sanitation officials said in the study. The city also does not anticipate that the future permanent bins will have wheels.

Still, New York City officials have said they hope the Harlem pilot program revolutionizes how the city deals with the 24 million pounds of trash, recycling and compost thrown out daily.

“The bins will fight rats by getting trash OFF the ground, OFF the sidewalks, and into something that is fundamentally different in three ways: its sturdy exterior, its height, and its frequency of collection, five days per week for schools and six for residential,” sanitation spokesperson Joshua Goodman said Thursday in a written statement (emphasis is his).

Many people tried. No one was able to accomplish it. We're going to containerize our garbage.

Mayor Eric Adams

“This is the first time in the history of this city. Many people tried. No one was able to accomplish it. We're going to containerize our garbage,” said Mayor Eric Adams at a July 17 appearance on Staten Island. “These plastic bags have to get off our streets, particularly in our business corridors.”

But the sanitation department’s study estimated some neighborhoods could lose up to 18% of their available parking under garbage containerization, in a city with about 1.5 million residential street parking spaces. The eight bins outside of P.S./I.S. 210 seemed to take up about the space of four cars. Bright yellow pylons will prevent any drivers from sneaking into the container spots.

Some residents on West 152nd Street said they felt like they’ve already lost too much parking and criticized the lack of community input.

“They take up parking. That’s not nice,” said Josef Rojas, who parked his SUV outside the apartment building across the street from the school. He’s lived in the building for 25 years and says the city needs to better enforce existing sanitation rules instead, such as ticketing businesses for not using lidded cans or putting trash out too early.

Another resident said she was most upset about the lack of notice.

“I saw some guys come. They made measurements, and the next minute you know, these things are up. It's just ugly. I don't like them,” said Lisa Matthews, who was standing on her stoop about 40 feet away from the installation.

Matthews glared at a can of coconut juice left on top of one of the trash bins.

“Look at it right now. Instead of opening the top and throwing it in the garbage, the person put it on top,” she said. Matthews also pointed out that each bin had a gap between the lids and wondered about how ratproof they actually were.

“There's such a wide crack in between,” Matthews said. “The rats are so big in this city, they can jump up and go in there and have a feast. It's not closed tightly.”

Matthews said she’s not a driver and is less worried about losing parking spots than what she described as several new rat eateries just steps away from her home, where she’s lived for 30 years. She said the city is unfairly using Harlem for the experiment.

Why didn't they do this downtown? Do it in Tribeca.

Lisa Matthews, Harlem resident.

“Why didn't they do this downtown? Do it in Tribeca,” Matthews said. “They bring it right here in Harlem.”

Goodman said the pilot program is responding to a mandate to clean up the streets.

“Over the last year-and-a-half, we have heard loud and clear that all New Yorkers want the piles of trash GONE from the streets and sidewalks. None of us were consulted on the old way of doing things … on the way in which our public spaces were just handed over to rats and terrible smells,” Goodman said. “We’re moving forward based on the feedback from every corner of the city that something needs to change.”

Anna Galka, who lives a block away on West 153rd Street, called the bins “an eyesore,” but said the vermin are worse.

“In the nighttime, you have rats running around,” said Galka, who added that she suspects the rules will not be followed. “I have a suspicion that people are going to drop stuff here, not necessarily from the school.”

The vision of shared containers won’t be feasible in some areas – according to city plans, the sanitation department will continue to rely on individual household bins for garbage collection in neighborhoods with lower population densities, like those in eastern Queens and Staten Island.

Neighborhoods with extremely high density, like the Financial District and Downtown Brooklyn, will also be unable to have street container bins for public use.

This story has been updated to correct the amount of refuse New Yorkers throw out daily.