Rat Battle Over Trash Mountains: City Plans To Limit Take-Out Time

NEW YORK CITY — The party soon could be over for millions of New York City rats teeming through trash for hours.

Sanitation officials said Thursday they're "strongly considering" moving the city's trash set-out time — which is currently 4 p.m. — back to 8 p.m.

The potential rule would ban black bags on sidewalks and streets during rush hour, said Joshua Goodman, a Department of Sanitation spokesperson.

"Rush hour shouldn’t be trash hour," he said in a statement. "New Yorkers put millions of pounds of trash and recycling on the street starting at 4pm – right as the evening rush is getting underway – and then it stays out, serving as a nightclub for rats and other pests, until it’s collected."

"Well soon, we’re going to try to shut the club down."

Black bags are a common sight on New York City's sidewalks and streets, in part because — unlike other major cities — there are few alleyways for trash collection.

But another reason is because the city's 4 p.m. set-out time is also the earliest of any major American city, sanitation officials said.

"New Yorkers have been told that this is just the way it is – as if looking at trash all afternoon was our birthright," Goodman said. "Enough already."

Trash has only piled up more during the coronavirus pandemic — sanitation officials said the midnight to 8 a.m. shift alone hauls in 5 million pounds of trash, a staggering amount that's several times more than pre-pandemic.

As trash piled up, so have complaints about rats and other rodents, according to 311 data. New Yorkers made roughly 44,000 calls to complain about rats during the pandemic's first two years, the data shows.

Goodman said sanitation officials aren't just considering a later set-out time to curb rat smorgasbords, they're also planning to do more collections during the midnight shift.

"You set it out later, we’ll pick up more of it earlier," he said.

New Yorkers and businesses still will have the chance to set out trash earlier than the proposed 8 p.m. time, officials said.

Residential trash could go out in a bin with a secure lid starting at 6 p.m., they said. Likewise, commercial waste could go out — also in a bid with a secure lid — starting an hour before the business closes, officials said.

The proposed rule change could take up to six months to take effect, as several bureaucratic steps are required, the New York Post first reported.