New York City Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the start of a fully containerized trash program in West Harlem.
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00:01Good morning. Thank you all for being here this morning. My name is Jeff Roth. I'm the deputy mayor for operations. They say New York cannot be contained. They are wrong. New York City produces a lot of trash, the equivalent of 107 47s every single day. But we've never had a dedicated space to collect it. Not really. Our trash has sat in leaky black bags and the overlooked in between spaces in our city against fit
00:29fences and city bike docks crammed next to doorways and hydrants. And in a feat that surely earns them their moniker, New York's strongest have had to navigate all that street infrastructure for decades until now. This administration wasn't satisfied with smelly summer nights and critters skittering across our paths on our walks home and endless mounds of bags cluttering our precious otherwise glorious public space. So first we changed set out times for our trash. We required food businesses across
00:59the city to containerize who put out the tastiest morsels for our critters. And then chain businesses, all businesses and smaller residential buildings. But we're just getting warmed up. The trash revolutionary himself, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you. Thanks so much. And really hats off to DSNY and Commissioner Lohan for really taking on the helm, get it done.
01:29And really hats off to DSNY and others. And last week we were with the Department of Parks to talk about what we were doing in the parks yesterday. We were with NYCHA to talk about what we're doing and the open spaces for our residents there. And it's all about quality of life. It's all about what we expect for ourselves, what we expect for New Yorkers. And this trash revolution is real.
01:59And over again about my total dislike for our little rodents that run around our city. And we put in place an immediate revolution and people were dismissive of it like they were dismissive of many of the initiatives that we stated. We were not going to normalize trash and filth in the city and rodents everywhere.
02:19And so our empire bends are striking back at rats and garbage in West Harlem. When I said four years ago that we were going to have a cleaner streets and fewer verments, the cynics rolled their eyes. They said it was not possible. It was something you have to just accept in New York because of the number of rodents we have in our city. And we said no to that. New York City is too big. They said government moves too slow and no one will ever beat the rats.
02:49Well, that has proven to be untrue. Well, that has proven to be untrue. They were falsely, they falsely believed that we were not going to hit it head on. We hired an amazing rat czar who took this initiative on the ground and she refused to take no for answers.
03:06job well done. Job well done. And as a result, we're here today looking at a fully containerized neighborhood and six straight months of fewer rat ciders.
03:25Manhattan community board nine has now become the first New York City neighborhood to have 100% of this trash covered by containerization requirements 100% start in one community board and we will cascade throughout the remaining community boards 59 community boards in the city and they all going to embrace this concept.
03:48And the result speaks for themselves. We have clean sidewalks, clean corners and fewer rodents. In fact, the number of rat sightings reported to 311 has dropped for six months straight when compared to the same time period 12 months prior.
04:04Our city is well on its way to looking as good as the people who live in the city. And that is our goal. That's our North Star. And in a first for all in North America, first time in North America, we're using automated side loading truck to service our empire bins.
04:26Creating the continent's first fully containerized neighborhood. This is not done anywhere or else in the North America region.
04:36We were told that it would take us more than five years and we said no to that Department of Sanitation and the commission of kids.
04:43Tish and the entire team there. We were clear when we sat down at the beginning of the administration. We said five years or too long and we did just that for.
04:54So we worked with developers across the globe to build to unveil the prototype, which is now being used to service the streets of West Harlem.
05:03All of these changes have taken place with community input input. It was crucial for this administration to sit down with the community, get their feedback and allow them to be part of this process because we know how challenging it is to have a major shift in any policy in the city.
05:22But with the feedback of the community and our extensive outreach, knocking on doors of every effective builders to speak to residents, owners and builders superintendents, roughly half of builders with 10 to 30 units opted for an empire bin instead of a smaller wheel wheelie bins for their trash.
05:43And DSNY staff will analyze the result of this pilot program. We're going to keep making sure we get feedback. We want to get it right. As we go throughout the entire city, we want to make sure we iron out any kinks or uncertainties to have a qualitative program.
06:00And so our trash revolution has had many phases, starting with latest set out times so that trash will not sit on the street for longer hours with rodents and other conditions will exist.
06:13And the requirements for small businesses as well as food related businesses across the city to containerize. We have also committed $32 million in permanent funding in our best budget ever to keep our streets clean and free of trash bags and rats.
06:30Clean and save the streets are crucial parts of what make New York City the best place to raise children and families. We're really excited about this initiatives and our partners and particularly was excited about those men and women who play a role that's behind us.
06:47Men and women of DSNY do the job every day of they have not had too much practice on snow for the last four years.
06:54But let's be clear from cleaning the streets of trash cleaning the streets of snow cleaning the streets after parades. These are optimum professionals that do at doing their job. So I want to turn it over to the commissioner.
07:10But before we go to off topics and I turn it over to the commissioner. Two things I want to point out. One crime stats. You know, you hear people say over and over again, cities are safe cities out of control. They're using it as sound bites for their political reasons. But the numbers don't lie. Noises lie.
07:32Five straight months. Our shootings and homicides numbers are the lowest in recorded history. Lowest in recorded history. It is because of what the men and women of the police department, they're doing.
07:49They're doing. This is such a win for New Yorkers and it matches our holistic approach of preventing crime, going after young people with justice involved in our programs like CRED, summer youth employment and other entities, but it also going after those who carry guns.
08:08We removed over 22,000 illegal guns. You can't have a shooting if you don't have a gun. And we removed over 22,000 illegal guns off our streets. And so hats off to Commissioner Tish and the men and women of the New York City Police Department as we continue to drive down quiet crime and our quality of life issues.
08:28And second and most importantly, the sickening attack in Colorado, the increase of anti-Semitism we're seeing across the country, if not across the globe also since October 7th, this attack really was despicable and we all should be calling to denounce this attack.
08:52And this is why we started the office in anti-Semitism as well as reaching out to the various groups in our city as we come together and send a loud message that any form of hate has no place in the city in general, but specifically the increase we send in anti-Semitism.
09:15You can't have 10% of the population is experiencing 61% of the hate crimes. That's not acceptable. And what happened in Colorado was despicable. Our hearts go out to the families that are involved and out of an overabundance of cautious, we are increasing resources at religious sites throughout the city and during the sacred Holy Day of Shavuot.
09:41So I want to turn it over now to the commissioner. Great job.
09:49Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good morning. I'm Javier Lohan, the acting commissioner of New York City Department of Sanitation. It's a great big day for us today, as you know.
09:58So in May of 1961, President Kennedy stood before Congress and committed that our country would put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth.
10:05No single space project in this period, he said, would be so impressive or so difficult to accomplish.
10:11This project called for a degree of dedication, organization and discipline that some cynics believe the United States simply couldn't deliver.
10:17Well, they were wrong. In February of 2024, Eric Adams stood on the streets of Manhattan and pledged that New Yorkers would put trash in bins.
10:25The inheritors of the same cynical mindset, the doubters, the haters, the rat lovers said it was impossible, that mounds of trash bags are an inevitable part of our cityscape.
10:35When New Yorkers traveled to Amsterdam, Barcelona or Buenos Aires, they came back with stories of clean streets and containerized trash and then somehow still held the belief that New York City was so exceptional that dirty streets were a necessary part of our daily lives.
10:49But just as John F. Kennedy said, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and to do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
10:58And that challenge is one that we are willing to accept and one which we intend to win.
11:03So, too, did this administration choose to get trash off the streets, not because it was easy, but because it was hard.
11:09We embarked on this project determined to turn the tide on generations of trash on the curbs, foul odor, oozing liquids, and legions of rats, something that past city leaders dismissed as impossible.
11:20We spent months analyzing trash volumes, speaking with stakeholders, looking at best practices around the world.
11:26We developed a policy, published a playbook, and then, who would have thought, we began executing the plays.
11:31We drastically reduced the number of hours trash sits on our sidewalks.
11:35We moved commercial trash into bins.
11:37We moved low-density residential trash into bins.
11:40Every step of this was met with scoffs from the naysayers and the squeaks from the rats.
11:44But we remained determined to overcome the enemies of the trash revolution.
11:48And the results? Six straight months of declines in rat sightings.
11:52And finally, there was trash from high-rises, the trash that people said we could never get into our containers.
12:01That remained the final challenge.
12:03Today, we are announcing that we have accomplished that, too.
12:06You are all standing in the very first neighborhood in North America to have its trash fully containerized with the use of stationary on-street containers, or, as they are known in New York, the Empire Bin.
12:16Over the last five weeks, we have installed roughly 1,100 of them throughout Manhattan Community Board 9.
12:21These bins are sturdy, rodent-resistant, and locked for use only by specific buildings and their staff.
12:27Servicing these Empire Bins required a truck that did not exist anywhere in North America.
12:32It had to be designed and built, a process industry experts told us would take five years.
12:37We got a prototype built in less than one year.
12:40These trucks, operated by two sanitation workers, are now on the streets of West Harlem.
12:44And you're going to see one operate in a few minutes.
12:46Today, these automated sideloading trucks and Empire Bins are bringing cleaner streets, cleaner sidewalks, and fewer rats to all who live here.
12:54And tomorrow, we begin analyzing the results and working toward developing a timeline and process to expand this to other parts of the city.
13:02Again, we choose to do this not because it's easy, but because it's hard.
13:06When I started as a sanitation worker in 1999, the idea that we could get to where we are today seemed impossible.
13:13But in my 26 years since then, I've seen too many good people get hurt from throwing bags or get sick with leptospirosis.
13:19I've seen too many neighborhoods asked to live with garbage use and rats all over the sidewalks.
13:23It doesn't have to be that way.
13:25Today, we have achieved a giant leap forward for our city.
13:29The completion of the Signature Adams Administration Initiative, a true revolution in how we handle our trash.
13:40So no initiative can't be done without our community partners and advocates.
13:44We want to bring up one from the neighborhood, Andrus Orujuela.
13:51I can't say how happy I am to be here.
13:53And the first thing I want to do is thank everyone up here for getting this program off of the ground.
13:58I'm from New York.
14:00I've lived here my entire life.
14:01I did spend three years living in Spain after I graduated from college, and I noticed in every city the trash had a special container.
14:11Everywhere I went, I traveled the entire country, and I said, why can't we do that in New York?
14:16And when I got back to New York, everyone said, well, it can never happen.
14:19And here we are today.
14:20It's happening.
14:21It's here, and I'm so happy.
14:26It's fantastic.
14:28Thank you to the mayor.
14:29Thank you to the council member, the commissioner, the Ratshaw, everyone.
14:31I will say this.
14:33We've had some of those critters on our block, and we're seeing fewer of them.
14:38We're very happy.
14:39And I do think all of the naysayers will come around once they see all the rodents off of their block.
14:44Thank you so much.
14:45Kelly, how are you?
14:58We're going to put a bit on your block.
15:00Don't worry.
15:00There are some myths, but we need more.
15:03I wanted to ask, other than the RAT siding thing down, what other data can you point to that shows that it's actually working?
15:10And then, I know this is a pilot program.
15:12What else would you look to target?
15:14What other neighborhoods would you look to target today?
15:16So, since the pilot officially kicks off today, we're going to look at some of the operational perspectives, some of the cleanliness stats.
15:24So, right now, it's a little premature, but most of the two main things that we're going to look at it, RAT sightings, operational effectiveness, and then cleanliness in the neighborhood.
15:32So, those are the things we're going to start evaluating today once the pilot kicks off.
15:35And then, after the one-year period, then we'll work closely with the administration and see which neighborhood has a better fit for moving forward to the next district.
15:43And even if you take the rotors out of the equation, the plastic bags is a throwback from the 60s.
15:51After the sanitation strike, we always used to put our garbage in garbage pails, in garbage bins.
15:59And then, after the strike, we allowed these plastic bags.
16:04They are horrific to look at.
16:07They cause problems with smell, cleanliness.
16:11And garbage should not be in bags on streets.
16:16They should be in a well-organized manner.
16:18And I agree, as it was stated, you travel the globe, and when you speak to them, they say, what are garbage bags?
16:25People don't put their garbage in organized countries.
16:31They don't put their garbage in plastic bags on streets.
16:33So, we're really going back to the future, which we should have moved away from years ago.
16:40But it was too big.
16:42No one wanted to try it because it was too big.
16:44And you said it best.
16:46We're not doing it because it's easy.
16:48We're doing it because it's hard.
16:49And that's what we do in this administration.
16:52Mr. Mayor, you did comment briefly on the anti-Semitic attack in Colorado.
16:57But I'm wondering if there are any specific threats against New York City.
17:01Now, it's a holiday today.
17:02There's a lot of people on the streets.
17:04And I'm wondering what you would say to them.
17:06But also, how will the police use intelligence to prevent attacks like those in D.C. and in Colorado?
17:15Well said.
17:16No, there are no specific threats to New York at all.
17:20But we have an amazing Deputy Commissioner of County Intelligence, Commissioner Weiner.
17:27And we are constantly monitoring not only what happens in other cities, what's happening across the globe, and monitoring all the noise in the usual places.
17:40And so, when it comes down to our terrorist, anti-terrorist operations, much of it you don't see.
17:49But there's never a moment that Commissioner Weiner and our team remain quiet or silent.
17:55They are in a constant state of monitoring any noise out there.
18:00And thank God we have not had any major terrorist attack on our soil since 9-11.
18:08We foiled several.
18:10But the prevention is as important as responding.
18:16And that's what they do every day.
18:17They're good at what they do.
18:19They're constantly in the state of briefing and finding out what's happening across the globe.
18:23They're good at what they do every day.
18:53They're good at what they've done.
18:56Excuse me.
18:57Watch the Shift.
18:58And he's going to put trash in the bin now.
19:25Jason, face this way, excuse me in the front, B-S-A-Y.
22:27Let's play it like that.
22:57Let's play it like that.