What a bunch of garbage!
New Yorkers were told they have to start using official NYC garbage cans for trash pickup as part of an anti-rat push by City Hall — but good luck finding the bins.
Every building with between one and nine units will have to use the official “NYC Bin” when they put out their trash by this summer or else face a fine, but residents are having difficulty finding them for purchase as the city government blames an outside vendor for the issues.
The Sanitation Department warns on its own website: “Online ordering and the call center are currently unavailable. Select NYC Bins are available at all NYC Home Depot locations.”
But one Brooklynite told The Post they went to Home Depot only to find the bins out of stock.
“How can we not find a consistent supply of these cans without using a Home Depot and an out-of-state manufacturer who can’t even supply them?” the homeowner fumed to The Post.
Michael Monopoli, a 76-year-old Staten Islander, ordered a bin in October that never arrived. Then when he contacted the Department of Sanitation, he found the phone lines down and their website useless.
“I sort of got a little tired, and I felt like, to tell the truth, I’m really annoyed with sanitation,” Monopoli said. “I never got the pail. And when I went to call you, the Department of Sanitation, you close down your phone and your website. So how am I supposed to get a ticket from you?”
The city blamed the vendor that makes the bins, saying “ongoing issues with the outside vendor that makes and delivers the bins failing to fulfill some orders.” Frustrated New Yorkers should email the manufacturer, Otto Environmental Systems, directly for refunds, the city said.
But in a statement to The Post, the manufacturer also said people should go to Home Depot to purchase the bins.
“We are committed to restoring home delivery as quickly as possible to ensure the success of this important program,” a spokesperson for Otto Environmental Systems said.
One Brooklyn homeowner, who asked to remain anonymous because their work requires them to sometimes work with the city, noted many communities have managed to successfully switch over to standardized garbage bins.
“It seems like only in New York can you try to match a standard idea from across the country and struggle so much to accomplish it,” they said.
Another Brooklyn resident, 42-year-old Brad, finally got his bins after months of waiting. He ordered when the new program was first announced and demand was still low, he said.
“It took like two months or something. And that was early on,” Brad said, adding that sanitation workers seem to be struggling to work with the bins themselves.
“It has a latch. They have to drag it over to the truck, flip it up, and then take the bags, throw them out, and then they have to just throw it back where it went and then move on,” he said.
“Before they had a flow,” he went on. “They just grabbed the bags from the curb, tossed them and kept going. It’s like a whole extra step. It’s a lot.”
Former Mayor Eric Adams made containerization a central goal of his administration amid his “War on Rats.” But it was the City Council that passed legislation to reimburse middle-class homeowners for the roughly $50 bins.
Trash from these buildings is currently required to be set out in any 55-gallon lidded bin. But when the switchover starts this June, if New Yorkers don’t have the NYC-branded bins, they will be fined at least $50 — with repeat offenders facing penalties as high as $200.
A spokesperson for the Sanitation Department told The Post the agency homeowners won’t be fined if they ordered a bin and are waiting for it to be delivered.
But that might be easier said than done, the Brooklyn homeowner said.
“How do you prove that? You’re going to spend months fighting a ticket,” they railed.
Others think the entire operation is little more than a “money grab” by the city — and that the point is for people to not have the bins so they can be fined.
“It’s quite a racket. If they’re gonna make rules like that, they need to provide the bins. They’re taking money from everybody. It’s a money grab,” said 44-year-old Tom Pratt of Bushwick.
“I refuse to purchase them, or let the old man who owns this house spend what little money he’s got on Eric Adams’ f–king bins.”
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