New York's trash revolution: Plastic bins for a cleaner future

The USA may pride itself on technological or economic superiority, but it drastically falls behind in certain aspects. In 2024, the mayor of New York introduced innovations to the city — wheeled containers, which will become part of the "trash revolution."

At a Monday press conference, New York Mayor Eric Adams demonstrated a plastic trash can. By June 1, 2026, he announced that every building with one to nine apartments would have to purchase an NYC Bin — a plastic-wheeled trash can. The cost of the trash bin is $50, which will be shared among the apartment tenants. Starting November 12, New Yorkers must place waste in a container. This aims to solve the problem of bags piling up on the streets, spilling trash, and foul odors. It might also reduce the population of rats, which until now have been able to scavenge quite freely around unsecured food scraps.

"When you look at the billions of pounds of trash we remove off our streets annually, many people thought it was impossible that these babies here, the bins, were going to be part of our trash revolution [...]. We're only catching up to what other municipalities across the globe, what they are currently doing," acknowledged the Mayor of New York. Larger residential buildings are also included in the plan. "That's nearly 10 billion pounds of trash each year that we won't see or smell. They won't cut our sidewalks. They won't ruin our days when rats run across and out of our garbage. It is a real revolution. This is a rat-proof container and it's going to do the job," summarized Eric Adams.