Trash bag mountains a thing of the past in this Harlem area

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Three mornings a week, a fleet of brand-new, $500,000 trucks descends on Harlem to hoist a thousand massive trash bins into the air.

Sanitation worker Anthony Martin stood outside one of the trucks on a recent misty morning and signaled his colleague in the driver's seat, Marvin Hernandez, who used a joystick to shake loose a few stubborn trash bags. They slid into the compactor, and the truck's arms lowered the container back into its permanent home in front of a city sidewalk.

The two repeated this routine 80 times through the morning — their part in a 16-truck ballet playing out for the first time ever as part of Mayor Eric Adams’ "trash revolution."

The plan calls for getting all of the city’s garbage into secure trash bins rather than strewing it across the sidewalks in stinky piles of garbage bags. The rollout has been fully implemented for the first time in Harlem, making Martin and Hernandez part of New York City’s storied trash history.

Some residents have complained on social media about the bins, which sit in spaces typically occupied by parked cars. The sanitation department says the bins, produced by a Spanish company, have only replaced about 4% of the neighborhood’s spots.

“As a result of our efforts, we now have a fully containerized neighborhood in Harlem — the first in North America — and have seen six straight months of fewer rat sightings with cleaner sidewalks and clearer corners,” Adams said in a statement on Monday.

The new bins hit the street about a month ago automatically for buildings with 31 or more units. Buildings with 10 to 30 units had the option to request them, and sanitation officials said about half of the buildings in the area did.

Sanitation officials also said the new bins and corresponding trucks are cutting down on the food supply for the neighborhood rat population. For decades, trash workers had to heave garbage bags over the hoods of cars from the sidewalk or squeeze between them to reach the back of the truck.

“ It's a different mindset, different muscles being used,” said Martin, a 19-year veteran of the department. “ I mean, there's still some physical elements to it … Sometimes there's bags outside the bin that we still have to pick up and put back in the bin.”

The conventional trash removal dance leads to a lot of workplace injuries. Acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan started his career heaving bags into trucks, which can also be covered with disease-ridden rat urine.

“I’ve seen too many good people get hurt from throwing bags or sick with leptospirosis, and I’ve seen too many neighborhoods asked to live with garbage juice and rats all over their sidewalks,” Lojan said.

The new "Empire Bins" can only be opened with a special keycard given to building staff.

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