Upper West Side Schools Enter The War On Rats

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The war on rats has opened a new advance on the western front.

A new trash containerization pilot program has expanded to four Upper West Side schools in an effort to prevent rodents from feasting at their traditionally reliable food source of loose trash bags piled on city sidewalks.

The program, which began in Harlem, replaces those bags with secure, rodent-proof trash containers outside of the schools.

Sanitation Department officials said that since the 12-block pilot — which also included 12 school buildings — was so successful in Harlem, they decided to expand it to include four Upper West Side schools along the same trash collection route.

"As a result of this pilot getting black bags off the streets, rat sightings to 311 declined by 68 percent within the pilot zone compared to the same period the prior year," said DSNY press secretary, Vincent Gragani.

Over the weekend, the city installed the bins outside of PS 165 Robert E. Simon, PS 145, The Bloomingdale School, the Edward R. Reynolds/Young Women’s Leadership School and JHS 054 Booker T. Washington.

The containers are currently on wheels, but eventually the bins will be stationary and compatible with the city's new automated side-loading trucks, similar to the ones shown at a Feb. 1 event downtown.

Trash has been a main focus of Mayor Eric Adams' so-called "war on rats," a strategy which rodent experts uniformly say is integral to impacting rodent populations in an urban environment.

The strategy marked a shift from his earlier days as Brooklyn Borough President, when Adams held a grisly press conference showing off a bucket designed to drown the little mammals — which showed few results because, as rat experts put it: it's impossible to kill your way out of a rat problem.

Last year, the mayor created a new Rat Czar position and made a big show of the announcement the new rat fighter, Kathleen Corradi, a hire that was mostly met with praise from rodent experts and community groups devoted to fighting the scourge of rodents on their blocks.

Starting Friday, all city business were required to comply with a new Sanitation policy requiring all commercial establishments to containerize their trash in a secure, lidded bin.