New York City is to restrict the hours that trash can be left on sidewalks to after 8pm in an effort to curb the city’s exploding rodent population.
From 1 April next year, households and businesses will no longer be able to take out their garbage at 4pm, Mayor Eric Adams announced at a joint press conference with New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Monday.
Residents will be able to drop their trash from 6pm as long as bags are put in sealed containers, the officials said, but no later than midnight.
Mr Adams said the new measure would reduce the amount of time that piles of trash were in the streets, removing unpleasant smells and sights from the city while deterring rats from venturing out in search of food.
“Everyone who knows me knows one thing: I hate rats,” Mr Adams told the news conference.
“Rats have no place in this city.”
Rat sightings and complaints have soared 71 per cent in the first nine months of the year, with more than 21,500 calls to the city’s 311 hotline in 2022, NYC Councilmember Shaun Abreu told reporters.
Mr Abreu, who introduced the legislation to reduce trash dumping hours, told media: “This is not Ratatouille, rats are not our friends.”
The Department of Sanitation will also try to reduce the amount of time trash is sitting on the streets by collecting more of it on midnight to 8am shifts.
“The biggest swing that you can take at cleaning up our streets is to shut down the all-night, all-you-can-eat rat buffet,” Ms Tisch told the press conference.
Mr Adams said the sight of trash on the streets was hindering New York’s recovery from the pandemic.
“Bags of trash sitting on the curb for hours have hurt our city’s recovery for too long and is one of the most indelible images of New York, but, today, we’re saying enough is enough by making a generations-overdue change that will have a real impact on the cleanliness of our streets,” Mr Adams said.
“We’re not going to let New Yorkers be plagued by rats - we’re going to keep our city squeaky clean.”
A public hearing on the new trash laws will be held in November.
