Overview
- The city began installing more than 700 residential Empire Bins in Brooklyn Community District 2 on Thursday, and officials expect the local rollout to finish by the end of the fall.
- Property managers will open the sealed bins with key cards or a smartphone app, and the Department of Sanitation will empty them with automated side‑loading trucks to reduce manual lifts and exposure to street hazards.
- DSNY analysis says the bins in the district could replace about 768 of 23,795 on‑street parking spaces, with some blocks losing up to roughly 10 percent of spots and neighbors voicing concern about reduced parking.
- Use of Empire Bins is mandatory for buildings with 31 or more units, optional for properties with 10 to 30 units that can instead use wheeled city bins, and single‑family or very small buildings must continue using smaller wheeled containers.
- The rollout builds on a West Harlem pilot of roughly 1,100 bins that officials say cut rat sightings, and the city plans to add more than 6,500 bins to about 3,500 buildings in 2027 with a goal of citywide containerization by 2031.