700 Rodent-Proof Trash Bins Coming To Brooklyn Neighborhoods: See Where

BROOKLYN, NY— More than 700 rodent-resistant bins will replace curbside piles of garbage bags in Brooklyn Community District 2, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Thursday.

The Department of Sanitation expects to finish installing the containers by the end of fall. The rollout marks the first time the City has brought its residential Empire Bin program to Brooklyn.

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The district includes Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Fulton Ferry, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Instead of leaving bags on the curb for collection, eligible apartment buildings will store their trash in locked, street-level bins designed to keep rodents out.

How Will The Empire Bins Work?

The sanitation department will install the containers outside apartment buildings with more than 30 units. Buildings with 10 to 30 units can join voluntarily.

Property managers will open the bins with key cards or a smartphone app. Sanitation workers will empty them using automated side-loading trucks, which lift and service the containers mechanically.

The City already requires businesses and smaller residential properties, including single-family homes, to put their garbage in smaller, wheeled containers known as wheelie bins.

Medium-sized apartment buildings that decline to join the Empire Bin program must also use wheelie bins.

The system aims to reduce the time workers spend handling individual garbage bags, limit rodents' access to food waste and free sidewalk space for pedestrians.

Where Has The City Installed The Bins?

The sanitation department began deploying about 1,100 Empire Bins last summer in Manhattan Community District 9, which includes Hamilton Heights, West Harlem and Morningside Heights.

The containers operated through a particularly cold, snowy winter, according to the department. Brooklyn's rollout builds on that experience and moves the program into a second borough.

The City prepares to expand the program to six additional districts in 2027.

Those districts include:

• Bronx Community District 2, covering Hunts Point and Longwood.
• Bronx Community District 5, covering University Heights, Mount Hope, Morris Heights and Fordham Heights.
• Queens Community District 2, covering Sunnyside, Hunters Point and Woodside.
• Manhattan Community District 2, covering the West Village, SoHo, Little Italy, Greenwich Village and Nolita.
• Brooklyn Community District 8, covering Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Weeksville.
• Staten Island Community District 1, covering the North Shore.

The sanitation department expects the 2027 expansion to bring more than 6,500 Empire Bins to more than 3,500 buildings.

The City aims to move all neighborhoods to container-based trash collection by the end of 2031.