Brooklyn curbside trash bins begin replacing bag piles—and parking spaces

What is changing

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson announced on Thursday that crews had started installing more than 700 Empire Bins in Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Dumbo, Clinton Hill and the Navy Yard. The containers are intended for streets in front of buildings with more than 30 units.

Officials said the installation would be completed by the end of the fall. At that point, household trash bags will no longer be permitted at the curb across the rollout area, home to 138,000 people; recycling bags may still be set out there.

How building rules differ

The bins will be emptied by newly purchased city garbage trucks that lift and empty the containers. The announcement marks the first use of these street bins for residential buildings in Brooklyn and their first deployment in such a dense city area.

Buildings with nine or fewer units are already required to use smaller official NYC Bins that can be wheeled to the curb. Buildings with 10 to 30 units can choose to join the Empire Bin program.

The curbside tradeoff

A sanitation department analysis estimates that the bins could replace around 768 of the area's 23,795 on-street parking spaces. The article reported that some neighborhoods could lose 10% of available spaces, while city data shows that more than 31% of households in the rollout area own at least one vehicle.

Officials pointed to a decline in rat sightings after a Harlem pilot as they described the potential of waste containerization. The city said it plans to continue the rollout next year in additional neighborhoods across the five boroughs.