New Trash Hours Will Starve NYC's Late-Night Rat Buffet, Mayor Says

NEW YORK CITY — New York City soon will no longer have a rat-friendly "five o'clock shadow" of black trash bags on its curbs every rush hour, officials said.

Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that the city will push back its long-held 4 p.m. set-out time for trash and recycling to 8 p.m. — an overhaul he said would dramatically reduce the amount of time unsightly bags of garbage will sit on curbs and sidewalks.

The shaved-off hours — which are slated to begin April 1, 2023 — also will starve swarms of rats, he said.

"Today, we are announcing a once-in-a-generation change that would have a real impact on the cleanliness of our city," he said.

"It made no sense that these garbage bags have remained on the street for such a long period of time."

The new rules would ban buildings from putting out trash bags before 8 p.m. Those that use plastic trash cans can put them out at 6 p.m., according to the rules.

Buildings with nine or more units can opt into a 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. set-out window, the rules state.

The changed hours have the potential to change an unsightly feature of life in New York City, but few other cities: heaping piles of trash along sidewalks and streets.

Council Member Shaun Abreu, among others who spoke with the mayor, said the current collection schedule will seem "comically archaic" to future generations.

"Our children will never understand why we let waste sit out for extended periods of time," he said.

Jessica Tisch, the city's sanitation commissioner, said keeping trash on the streets for hours only served to create a nightly "all-you-can-eat rat buffet" — a claim backed up by experts who trace the beginning of New York City's rat problem to the 1968 sanitation workers strike and the subsequent adoption of plastic bags over heavy cans.

"I want to be clear: the rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement," Tisch said.

Adams has a history of making bold promises about New York City's rat problem.

In 2019, he invited reporters to Brooklyn Borough Hall to show off a "cutting-edge," if gruesome, rat-killing technology: a bucket with a trap door filled with an alcohol-based solution that can hold up to 90 dead rats.

But as a recent Patch story found, the boozy rat traps showed some promise but likely wouldn't be as effective as a simpler solution: control the food source, control the rats.