NYLCV priority: Build upon DSNY’s Pilot Containerization Program for Manhattan CD9 and work towards a permanent citywide waste containerization program. Provide permanent, sealed containers to hold trash bags prior to collection to improve quality of life and mitigate the issues of the bags being opened by rodents.
Rats! While New York City has made important progress on its zero waste goals – including the passage of the Zero Waste Act and subsequent roll out of the citywide curbside composting program, there is still a long way to go. We believe the logical next step – the proverbial low-hanging (discarded) fruit – would be for the City Council to vote on and pass Intro 1123, which would direct the NYC Department of Sanitation to establish a program requiring all buildings with 10 or more dwelling units to place residential waste in stationary on-street containers.
One of the objectives of the New York City Zero Waste Act, which was passed in 2023, is to control how waste is handled, especially food and other household trash. On one hand, this effort is key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector, but it also has a concurrent goal of reducing the city’s notoriously thriving rat population.
Secure containerization is necessary to prevent rats and other rodents from having easy access to a food source. It also improves the street’s appearance, reduces litter, and enhances neighborhood quality of life.
This is not conjecture. As part of an ongoing pilot program, Manhattan Community District 9 (CD9), which includes Hamilton Heights, Morningside Heights, and Manhattanville, has become the first area of the city to containerize 100% of its trash. Initial reports indicate a significant decrease in rat sightings within the district, with some reports claiming over 60% reduction.
But rats – even the cute ones – can transmit more than just a case of the creeps. They are direct and indirect vectors of human disease, including hantavirus, leptospirosis, rat-bite fever, salmonellosis, and ectoparasites such as the plague (The Plague!). Simply put: trash containerization is bad for the rodents, but good for human health.
Zero Waste
New York City’s Zero Waste Act is intended to significantly reduce waste sent to landfills and incinerators. Separating waste from the environment (containerization) impacts the larger effort to reduce and manage the waste stream generated by New York City.
A related effort is to reduce the amount of waste discarded into those containers in the first place. Food scraps and other organic waste, for example, comprise over one-third of all commercial waste, and approximately 34% of New York City’s household waste is organic material.
Diverting this material from landfills – whether to be used as a natural soil amendment through composting or as clean renewable energy through anaerobic digestion – reduces methane gas emissions, an extremely potent greenhouse gas and major contributor to climate change and poor health.
New York City has mandated that all residents separate food scraps, food-soiled paper, or yard waste from trash. Owners and property managers of buildings with four or more units must provide a designated storage area with labeled compost bins (containers). Learn about the citywide curbside composting program here.
Rat Mitigation and Environmental Justice
Chew on this: evidence suggests a strong correlation between rat prevalence and socioeconomic disparity. Rat activity is not equally distributed across the city. In fact, there is an association between increased rat sightings and factors such as older and vacant housing units, proximity to subway lines and public spaces, and lower education levels in the community.
New York City has designated four Rat Mitigation Zones based on the frequency of rat sightings, complaints, and inspections. The intent is for city efforts to reduce the rat population (mitigation) to address issues of equity and environmental justice by focusing efforts on these rat mitigation zones.
Balancing Sustainability and Equity
The success of these programs (containerization, diversion of organic waste, rat mitigation zones) hinges on striking a balance between achieving environmental goals and ensuring equitable implementation that avoids disproportionately burdening vulnerable populations. Continued efforts towards robust public awareness campaigns, accessible education in multiple languages, and considering flexible approaches to bin provision and enforcement will be crucial to fostering widespread adoption and addressing equity concerns within New York City’s mandatory containerization and composting programs.
The city’s composting program was a major step toward achieving zero waste in New York City. Now we need the City Council to take the next step by passing Intro 1123 to codify a citywide waste containerization program, which would improve quality of life and reduce direct and indirect health threats related to the presence of rats and other rodents.
The New York League of Conservation Voters’ policy objectives address protecting our environment, tackling the climate crisis, and safeguarding public health. NYLCV develops policy agendas that lay out specific legislative and budgetary remedies tailored to different levels of government and regions of the state. They serve as practical blueprints to help guide elected officials, policymakers, political candidates, voters, and the general public toward a more sustainable future. Although policy agendas are developed and promoted to improve people’s well-being and health, the ins and outs of the policy advocacy process can obscure this ultimate objective.
In this series, Policy Means People, the New York League of Conservation Voters’ policy agenda will be described in terms of the human outcomes that will follow the successful implementation of policy recommendations. We aim to trace the links between policy objectives and the lived experiences of people affected by that policy. Policies have in common that the proposed action will result in a beneficial outcome, but the mechanism(s) whereby this can occur are often left unspecified.
Mark Tausig, Ph.D., is a volunteer writer for the New York League of Conservation Voters. He is a retired Professor of Sociology, where he studied health disparities, social networks, work and mental health, international health, and population aging in low—and middle-income countries. His latest book, Population Aging in Societal Context: Evidence from Nepal, will be published by Routledge later this year (2025).