Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) announced new planned policies to shorten the time that trash stays on the sidewalks. These new plans are scheduled to go into action on April 1st in 2023. 

Mayor Eric Adams, stated, “We’re not going to let New Yorkers be plagued by rats – we’re going to keep our city squeaky clean.”

Due to the current policy, trash and recycling can be placed on the sidewalk after 4PM. In many communities, it shows that someone could have left the waste for longer than 14 hours.

According to the nyc.gov website, there will be three options for residential buildings to place their trash out. The first option is to place trash out after 6PM in a container with a secure lid. The second option following is after 8PM, residents would have bags directly on the curb, and lastly, if a building has nine or more residential units, the property owner may opt-in to a 4AM-7AM set out window instead. 

To reduce the appearance of black bags on the sidewalk, decreasing the amount of trash that rats can reach could improve the city’s cleanliness and sanitation.

WJPS junior, Vasiliki Kostakis, stated, “I don’t think changing time will help, because not every person will follow the policy.”

WJPS senior, Thekli Chronis, commented, “I believe that changing the hours may help, because trash will stay outside for fewer hours.”

“Garbage piles” by Steven Vance is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.