The Next Phase of New York City’s ‘Trash Revolution’ Is Here

At sunrise in Manhattan on a recent morning, Anthony J. Martin jumped out of a garbage truck and gave a thumbs up for the driver to lower a set of red mechanical arms to pick up a trash bin from the street. The bin rose high into the air and a cascade of trash bags fell into the truck.

As a sanitation worker in New York City for almost two decades, Mr. Martin is well accustomed to tossing bags of acrid, leaky garbage from the curb into the back of a truck.

Now he is pioneering a new approach that starts in one neighborhood this week and could expand across the city — part of what city officials are calling a “trash revolution.”

All large residential buildings in Community Board 9 in the West Harlem neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Manhattanville and Hamilton Heights are now required to use so-called Empire Bins that hold 800 gallons of trash. Hundreds of parking spots were removed to accommodate the 1,000 European-style bins lining the streets, serviced by 16 new side-loading garbage trucks.

The idea that New York City is finally putting its trash in cans, long after most urban civilizations have done so, has led to a fair amount of ridicule. But it is a significant change in a city where piles of trash bags have clogged sidewalks for decades.

The shift in trash collection is viewed as one of the major achievements of Mayor Eric Adams’s first term. Most of his rivals in the mayor’s race this year say it is one of the few policies of his they would keep.