700 Empire Bins head to Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo and Clinton Hill, taking about 768 parking spaces. What Sanitation told the Council about the rollout

The city began installing more than 700 on-street trash containers, called Empire Bins, across Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Dumbo, Clinton Hill and the Navy Yard on Thursday, Gothamist reported. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson put in the first one at a news conference in Brooklyn Heights.

The bins go in front of buildings with more than 30 units and are emptied by new trucks that lift them. Once the rollout is done this fall, trash bags will no longer be allowed on the curb across an area home to 138,000 people. Recycling bags still are. Brooklyn Paper also covered the launch.

Why it matters to residents: the bins take parking spaces. A Sanitation Department analysis found they could replace about 768 of the area's 23,795 on-street spaces, Gothamist reported. Some neighborhoods could lose about 10% of their spots. In exchange, the city says, there will be fewer rats and cleaner sidewalks. Officials pointed to a drop in rat sightings in Harlem after a pilot there.

Next year the bins are slated for Hunts Point and University Heights in the Bronx, Sunnyside in Queens, the West Village, Prospect Heights and Staten Island's North Shore, Gothamist reported.

What our records add

Sanitation's message to the Council: big buildings first. At the Sanitation Committee's Oct. 15 hearing, Commissioner Anderson described the planned citywide rollout. He said the city is on "an aggressive timeline to achieve full trash containerization by 2031." He argued that adding bins at every city facility now would divert resources and delay the residential rollout (19:35). Later in the hearing, a Sanitation official said that once the city has all the trucks it needs for residential containerization, it can look at shared containers for lower-density buildings, but not before (1:29:57).

The local member is on board. At the same hearing, Council Member Lincoln Restler, whose district includes Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn, told Anderson he was "very happy" that Empire Bins and commercial waste zones were coming to his community board (1:00:50). Council Member Crystal Hudson, whose district includes part of Clinton Hill, told Gothamist she had pushed legislation requiring the department to keep the rollout going after the last administration.

Bills on who gets bins are waiting.

• Int. 30, from Majority Leader Shaun Abreu, would require stationary on-street containers for waste from city-owned buildings. It was heard Oct. 15 and laid over. That is the bill Anderson warned would slow the residential rollout.
• Int. 987, also from Abreu, would let certain associations request on-street containers. It was heard the same day and laid over.
• Int. 624, from Frank Morano, would create exemptions for some buildings from containerization rules. It has five sponsors and no hearing since Feb. 12.

Int. 193, from Simcha Felder, would give free official bins to some three-unit buildings. It has had no hearing since Jan. 29.

Parking and safety. At the Transportation Committee's Oct. 27 Vision Zero hearing, Council Member Justin E. Sanchez asked DOT how it fits Empire Bins into its traffic safety plans. He asked whether containers could be placed in "daylighting" zones, the cleared spaces near crosswalks that help drivers and pedestrians see each other.

What's next

Installation in this part of Brooklyn is set to finish by the end of the fall. After that, buildings in the zone must put trash in the bins rather than on the sidewalk. Ints. 30 and 987 can come back for a committee vote at any time, but neither is on a published agenda.