What to Know
- New NYC trash rules take effect Saturday, April 1, and affect the time at which businesses and residential buildings can put garbage on the curb on collection days
- Mayor Eric Adams and sanitation officials announced the plan last fall as rat complaints spiked across the five boroughs; the Democrat said there's no reason trash needs to sit out so long
- There will be a one-month grace period during which violators will get written warnings. Recipients of those notes will be the first inspected when that grace period ends May 1, the city says
The times, they are a-changin' -- as far as when you can put out your trash in New York City on collection days, anyway.
Starting on Saturday, residents and businesses across the five boroughs have to put their trash out a few hours later. How much later? That depends.
If you put your garbage bags directly on the curb, the earliest time you can put your trash curbside for moves back four hours, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. If you put out your trash in a container with a secure lid (55 or fewer gallons only), you can do so a bit earlier, at 6 p.m. These times apply for scheduled trash pickups the next morning.
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Those rules apply to residential buildings of any size, and those are the only two options, per the sanitation department.
If you're not sure of your collection days, you can search by address right here.
The idea, Mayor Eric Adams explained when he first announced the plan last fall, is to give the stink less time to draw rats and the rodents less time to have at your leftovers, given the citywide spike in rat-associated complaints last year.
There will be a one-month grace period during which residents and businesses will get written warnings about violations. Recipients will be the first inspected when that grace period ends May 1, after which noncompliance may come with fines, officials say.
Either way, have your trash out by midnight to be sure it gets picked up, the city says.
For businesses that put their trash out curbside, there are also two choices:
- Got garbage in a container with a secure lid? It can go to the curb an hour before closing; or
- Trash bags placed directly on the curb can go out after 8 p.m.
Any containers have to be pulled off the sidewalk by the time the business reopens the next day.
In his fall announcement on the change, Adams called the current trash policy, which has been in place since 1969, outmoded, saying, "It makes no sense that these garbage bags remain on the streets for such a long period of time."
Health department data shows rat sightings in the city doubled in 2022. That statistic was made all the more jarring by research out earlier this year indicating millions of wild rats across the five boroughs could be carrying COVID-19. That again raises the possibility of animal-to-human transmission, though the authors say the potential threat is unclear.
