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Say goodbye to garbage mountains and hello to the “Empire Bins.” Starting this fall, hundreds of parking spaces in Brooklyn’s Community Board 2—covering Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights and more—will be swapped out for massive on-street trash containers. The city says the move will mean cleaner sidewalks, fewer rats and less of that signature eau de New York.
Mayor Eric Adams announced the rollout on Tuesday, calling it the next step in his so-called “trash revolution.” The idea is simple: Instead of leaving black bags piled on the sidewalk like a buffet for rodents, building supers will toss garbage into locked bins that can only be opened with special keys. Custom $500,000 garbage trucks will then swing by and scoop them up.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because the pilot already exists uptown. About 1,100 containers were dropped across Harlem over the past two years and officials say rat sightings have since plummeted. “On my block on Lafayette Avenue, we were having a severe rodent problem until the containerization,” Adams said. “It’s a massive, massive success and we’re going to continue in the right direction.”
The bins—shipped in from Spain—aren’t optional. Once installed, large apartment buildings with more than 30 units must use them. Landlords with 10 to 30 units get a choice: either request a curbside container or use smaller city-approved wheeled bins. Buildings with nine or fewer units already have to keep their trash in containers citywide.
Of course, nothing in New York comes without trade-offs and in this case, it’s parking. Sanitation officials say the Harlem rollout only displaced about 4 percent of spaces, but Brooklyn drivers are already bracing for impact. Fort Greene resident Rome Lockett summed up the dilemma to Gothamist: “I don't have a car, so I think it's a worthy trade-off, but if I had a car, I'd be kind of upset. There's not enough space in here for cars, people, trash cans, so something's gonna give.”
The bins will first appear outside schools in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill this fall, with a full rollout across the district in 2026, pending environmental review. And while Adams is promising to keep the momentum going, the timeline ultimately hinges on November’s mayoral election. For now, though, Brooklyn is preparing for a new kind of curbside battle: parking spots versus pest control.