New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats'
213 comments
·February 3, 2025aetherson
Very proud of NYC in leading the way to having trash cans, an advance that will surely spread to other less developed cities nationwide.
vladf
Yes perhaps one day cities like Tokyo will catch up
mc3301
Most of Tokyo (and Japan) doesn't have an excessive amount of pedestrians' litter. Public garbage cans are rare, though many convenience stores and some train stations have them.
Is there litter? Yes. Is there much less than, say, Vancouver, Bangkok or London? Absolutely.
It's due to a couple things that tourists may not be used to: -Be prepared to bring your garbage with you until you are home.
-Garbage is sorted differently in each municipality in Japan, and often the garbage bags cost money. Who is going to buy those bags and sort someone else's garbage?
-It's changing, but walking around consuming snacks, food, drinks in Japan is not that common. People do that at specific locations, thus they don't find themselves with empty food wrappers and drink cups while walking around. Thus, they don't see a need for public garbage cans.
-Crows make a quick mess of garbage here. Observing the above points means that (most) of Japan doesn't need stinky, sticky, flies-and-wasps-buzzing-around, crow-magnet garbage cans, which look almost as bad as litter everywhere.
satvikpendem
Have you seen the litter that piles up late at night in many Japanese cities? People simply leave their trash everywhere but the city cleans it up by morning. Tokyo is one of the most littered cities I've seen at midnight compared to any western city.
ziofill
Vancouver is pretty clean, have you ever been to Paris or Rome? (I’ve lived in all three)
eska
It’s not litter that causes the rat issue in NYC, it is the huge masses of household and business garbage.
whimsicalism
they do just pile up garbage bags on pickup day that i've seen
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cjbgkagh
Never been to Japan, but AFAIK they used to have trash cans but got rid of them due to a sarin gas terrorist attack in 1995.
catlifeonmars
Tokyo is significantly cleaner than NYC, or any major US city. I think this is GPs point.
vtashkov
[flagged]
vinay427
Much of central London could stand to be more developed, by this metric.
buyucu
Here in İstanbul we don't have a rat problem thanks to the huge numbers of cats in the city.
adonovan
We have over 200,000 stray cats in Brooklyn alone--as I learned recently when one cute but particularly insistent kitten tried to make its home in ours--yet somehow they are collectively terrible at hunting rats.
trhway
Interesting. I'd make a guess. In a cat friendly city like Istanbul you'd see cats freely and safely venturing everywhere. Rats would have no chances say in a cafe where a couple cats are sunbathing. Where is in cat unfriendly cities like a typical American city the cats aren't present on the streets, probably because this is where they get caught by Animal Control, etc., and they are more confined to some back alleys, empty lots, etc. And the rats problem for example in NYC is a street problem, i.e. where the trash is. And for example here in Bay Area the several colonies of feral cats that i know about aren't in populated areas where they could have been impactful upon street rat/mice population, instead these colonies are pushed out onto the edges of wildlife areas (where they still do useful things like protecting the birds nests/eggs from rats, etc., yet it woudln't really affect rats in the populated areas)
486sx33
I think it’s more like NYC rats are bigger than cats. Istanbul maybe the heat keeps them slim.
dmix
Yeah there’s no way that would happen in the west. In Canada you often hear stories of cats on the edge of properties or just sitting in a field and some lady driving by will stop, pick it up and drop it off at the shelter (which in some cases will only hold them for a few days before giving them away). There’s a huge well organized group of people keeping every animal not fully controlled in check and not keeping them indoors is frowned upon. It’s mostly cultural not just animal control regulation, like most enforcement of municipal rules.
lenkite
I believe Istanbul has over a million cats.
Tiktaalik
Hmm... Cats are more mousers and they're not actually that good at catching rats, which are much larger. Typically this was the job of small dogs.
(Not to say it can't be done. My own housecat killed a rat)
oniony
I guess you instead have a cat problem.
kamikazeturtles
That's like saying the Midwest has a squirrel problem
stingrae
Here in San Francisco we don't have a rat problem due to the coyotes in the city.
Lammy
It comes and goes depending on construction:
- https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/north-beach-rats-may-...
- https://hoodline.com/2015/10/rise-in-rat-sightings-reported-...
- https://old.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/j2n2ch/absent...
I had some come inside due to that last one but I didn't let them last long lol
aetherson
Also don't have a stray cat problem....
boredatoms
Ive seens rats running between trash, kearny/washington streets
kamikazeturtles
But Istanbul does have a stray dog problem. Dogs in this city are either obese and sunbathing or extremely aggressive.
itisit
I guess there aren’t any cats in the Ak Saray.
cute_boi
too many cats aren't good as they prey on birds and everything.
grubbs
Living in Baltimore was a mess with rats until the city issued the rat-proof trash bins. Now I rarely ever see them.
portaouflop
Insane that one of the richest most developed cities in the world just dumped their trash on the street without using cans
boringg
Theres a long story about noise complaints you should listen too. They had them then got rid of them.
bearjaws
Yup, if you live below the 20th floor in most buildings, the trash cans thudding at 2am is pretty jarring.
I am sure there is an engineering solve to pad the cans and dump truck, not sure if it was looked into or not.
viraptor
Well... There's another thing that they could learn from other cities. You can pick up the bins at 6am for example.
Spivak
I think people underestimate the amount of trash NYC produces. The survey the city paid for that was the impetus for this plan actually advised the city to give up on bins for Manhattan because it would require basically daily pickups. And in defiance of all good sense they're picking up trash 6 days a week. I genuinely commend them on doing the hard expensive thing anyway.
b800h
Do you not have wheelie-bins in the US?
wan23
In the US, yes, but in New York we generally just pile up our trash bags on the sidewalk on garbage day. We don't have alleyways between our buildings and most of the street space is taken up by free car storage.
namaria
NY serves a rat banquet on the regular and pikachu-faces at the amount of rats that attend.
anotherhue
> most of the street space is taken up by free car storage.
'Subsidised' I think is the more correct term here.
mattclarkdotnet
The thing being subsidised is free on street parking. Free on street parking is not subsidising the already existing street space.
cowsandmilk
most of it doesn't cost any money. I believe "free" is an accurate description.
cogman10
How often is garbage day?
Also a bit wild to me that there's not like a communal dumpster.
Some population dense cities also do underground dumpsters, has that been floated?
tetromino_
> How often is garbage day?
For general household trash, if you are eligible for DSNY collection, it's two times per week except for some holidays. Recycling and compost are once a week. If you contract to a private garbage collection company, it's whatever you specify in the contract.
> Also a bit wild to me that there's not like a communal dumpster.
Large apartment buildings of course do have trash chutes leading to a dumpster of some sort. But inside or outside smaller buildings, there is no space.
> Some population dense cities also do underground dumpsters, has that been floated?
There is an underground garbage handling system on Roosevelt Island. The idea of underground dumpsters in other parts of the city been floated, but it's impossible because there is too much density of existing underground infrastructure and much of this infrastructure is not mapped, making it impossible to plan an excavation project of such a scale. See e.g. https://dsny.cityofnewyork.us/wp-content/uploads/reports/fut... (pdf). (There are also interesting engineering questions of how underground dumpsters would work after heavy snowfall.)
saalweachter
The volume gets pretty intimidating; for Manhattan, you're talking around 140 cubic yards of garbage per block per week [0.1 yard / person, 1400 people / block], which would be ~4 of the 40-yard dumpsters (the 8 x 8 x 22' ones you'll see outside construction sites, roll-on/off trucks) per block.
That they're able to collect that much garbage anyway means it's not an unsolvable problem, but going from using that much space once a week, in the form of piles of garbage on garbage day [with the remainder of the time it being scattered in smaller piles in buildings' garbage rooms], to 24/7, means you're losing like 12 parking spots per block, or like half a building lot per block, if you're storing them off the street.
the_third_wave
I suspect the NYC underground is already so crowded with pipes and cables and under-sidewalk storage areas and other things there won't be much space for such dumpsters there.
tokioyoyo
I feel like people would sue the city if they had to walk more than a minute to dump out their trash in NYC. I was there for a few months when the trash bins were being tested out, and seeing people complain about it was… interesting?
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jstummbillig
Where do you store full trash bags in between pickups?
soared
Still on the sidewalk. NYC is perpetually full of trash bags in comparison to other major cities (or non major cities)
snakeyjake
On the street.
Go to Google Maps, zoom in on New York City, then drop a Streetview pin randomly anywhere in the city.
Chances are very, VERY, good that just by panning, not moving, you'll find a trash bag dumped on the sidewalk.
MisterTea
In trash rooms, hallways or alleyways if one exists (common outside of Manhattan).
datavirtue
Depositing trash bags on the street is legal?
rightbyte
For real? I thought that was a movie thing. Then again I though steam release manholes was a movie thing too...
cwmma
New York was weirdly built without alleys so there is a legitimate issue of where do you put the bins when it's not trash day that almost every other city doesn't have
eru
Well, they find the space to store their trash right now. So they definitely have enough space. The amount of trash would presumably roughly be the same before and after this change.
Eg they could sacrifice some street parking spots for the bins.
They could even charge the bins the same amount of money they charge for street parking (and fold these costs into the costs for trash disposal they charge trash producers).
hombre_fatal
> Eg they could sacrifice some street parking spots for the bins.
Taking away curb parking is one of the most heated political issues in the US.
It's controversial enough to take away parking to make the road safer for pedestrians and other drivers (new daylighting law in SF), so I can't imagine how hard it would be to do it for some trash cans.
SOLAR_FIELDS
As sibling implied basically every other major city in the US uses bins or dumpsters. Except NYC.
yostrovs
In New York City, the trash workers union prevents dumpsters from being used, which would kill jobs. Remember: trash is not a problem to deal with. It's a solution to unemployment.
bliteben
I moved back to the south after living out west for 20 years and it is insane the amount of trash dropped by trash workers while they are dumping bins. Part of it is cultural in that trash is literally piled at the street in bins of varying condition vs out west where you know if it doesn't fit in your 90 gal bin it ain't getting picked up by the robot arm.
Suppafly
The transition from "pile everything in a heap" to "if it's not in your wheelie bin it's not getting picked up" happens pretty quickly. Just need the garbage company to specify that in their contract with the municipality. I honestly miss being able to pile up oddly shaped pieces of trash though. Now if you have something weird, it's just not going to get picked up and you have to figure out how to get it to the dump.
nwatson
I don't see much of that in North Carolina.
orwin
I've heard that it was that it was because it would remove parking space.
But if what you are saying is true, that's what you get for not allowing multi-concern unions. Our union branch that take care of trash collection workers is also responsible for municipal cleaning workers, as well as dump workers: making the job worse for cleaning and dump workers is just not something the union would push for.
eru
Or alternatively, it's what you get for allowing unions. (At least unions that have special extra rights compared to any old club that people can form.)
macintux
Where would the dumpsters go? Serious question, the impression I get is that there is no room in many places in the city.
yostrovs
Dumpsters would go where trash goes now. Instead of trash sitting on the street, the same trash will sit inside dumpsters.
bobbylarrybobby
Parking spots that currently house individuals’s cars could be used for dumpsters instead.
kevin_thibedeau
They had plenty of room for on street restaurant expansions in many parts of the city.
bombcar
Room would have to be found.
At this point, even massive dumpsters on the sidewalk would be an improvement.
petee
That is at odds with the fact the article says they are using bins and picking them up 6 days a week, I don't see any union complaint here?
anovikov
I thought the problem with it was the lack of space.
eru
Well, the trash on the pavement is taking up space, too.
Proper bins could pile the trash higher, so they would take up less floor space than the random distributed piles.
And as other commenters point out, you could sacrifice some parking spots.
bobbylarrybobby
There is plenty of space, but most of it is taken up by individuals’ cars.
eru
> It's a solution to unemployment.
No, it's not. Just because a union opposes something doesn't mean it would cause unemployment.
martimarkov
It absolutely is a problem to be dealt with. I understand what you are implying but it actually is a problem
andrewla
Is there a source on this? This is the second of two conspiracy theories I've heard, the other being that Reagan is somehow responsible for getting rid of the communal dumpsters that are claimed to have once existed.
BtM909
I once saw a rat trying to open a wheelie-bin and when it looked up to me, I could see it think: shit, I'm busted; they know we are smart.
cafard
Washington, DC, has had "supercans" for about forty years. But it still has rats, though I suppose many fewer than it might.
potato3732842
I live in a city that most of HN would look down their nose at.
We have "wheelie bins".
hansvm
Most of HN has seen San Francisco. I doubt they'd look down too much.
gnkyfrg
[dead]
debeloo
What would happen if we managed to get rid of every single rat on the planet. The great rat extinction.
Would other species take it's place? Mice?
Or would the planet just be a better place?
chrisco255
Seeing as shrew-like animals are the oldest species of mammals and date all the way back to Triassic era, if you killed off one rodent species another would necessarily take its place. They also managed to survive several great extinctions in the last 250 million years and gave rise to our own species. Given the importance of them in the food chain, the world would most certainly be worse off without them.
eru
Well, if you have food scraps lying around, something will eat it. (Even if it's mold.)
I'm not quite sure why you would want to do genocide on rats. Some people even keep them as pets, you know?
Suppafly
>Some people even keep them as pets, you know?
Weird people.
tombert
Man I had a rat infestation in my house recently, and after that I think I could get behind a rat genocide.
Those fuckers got into my pantry and started knocking jars over, they poop on everything, they make a lot of noise, they get into the air conditioning ducts, they will chew through pretty much anything that isn't thick metal or plastic, and they reproduce like crazy.
We were able to get it under control and we hired someone to find and seal up the spots they were getting in from, but I gotta say that it wasn't an experience I want to go through ever again.
The only "good" thing about rats vs mice is that they're decidedly not subtle, so it's a lot more clear that you actually got them all. Mice are smaller and sneakier and when we had an issue with them a few years ago it took quite awhile to know before we knew they were gone.
Julien_r2
Reminded me of this job offer from the city [0], 2 years ago! Seems it paid off then!
Searching for this post, I ended up scrolling through the HN result of "new York rats" [1]. It paints quite a story! Couldn't imagine it was such an intense topic (running for more than a decade!)
wackget
The year is 2025. New York takes the bold, unprecedented step of storing their waste in receptacles which cannot be easily chewed through by pests. Will this wild experiment yield results? Scientists remain skeptical.
PedroBatista
While the design of NYC - plus economic pressures - never accounted for domestic waste storage ( in a global and universal way for all buildings/tenants ). The truth is no one ( with actual power ) did anything meaningful to stop this.
It became some type of "culture" or "it always has been this way" type of situation. With a city budget in the billions and a VERY active and "enforce/fine" happy public sector there is no excuse of "people don't just follow basic sanitation rules", it's in the culture and I hope this finally starts to go away as there is no reason to be this way.
pkulak
Considering that, according to polling, most residents would rather live with rats than lose the parking spot per block required for proper bins, I’d say this is a huge accomplishment in the fight against rats… and car brain.
eru
I hope the recent congestion charge can slowly change the culture towards market pricing for parking spots, too.
And I hope they make the congestion charge more dynamic. Here in Singapore where we had congestion charging even long before London, we have some electric gizmos that measure congestion and adjust the charge dynamically. Basically, if traffic slows down, they hike the charge. If traffic flows smoothly enough, they lower the charge.
DonHopkins
If only they could train rats to steal cars, pack them full of trash, and drive them out to the suburbs.
petee
I guess I'm confused about the article now because Brooklyn has trash cans everywhere, and I even recall seeing them 2-3 years ago. If I pick random street views every street has lidded bins
xethos
You're likely underestimating what rats can and will chew through to get a bite to eat.
petee
No, I'm very familiar with rats, but I can say for a fact that my friend's heavy duty plastic wheeled bins (the common ones) have been on the street 24/7 in NY and haven't been chewed into in the past 4 years. Probably how smooth that plastic is.
Fwiw the pilot program isn't using metal cans either, and apparently is working.
Edit: fun side note, I've seen a squirrel eat a hole through a 2" oak door to escape a basement, so Im not discounting a motivated rat :)
asdff
Rats live where there are bins too.
tantalor
When will the woke nonsense stop. /s
newsclues
I guess there are no homeless or unemployed people in NYC who could be mobilized to work on the problem.
Humans struggle in urban environments to resolve problems because “someone else should”.
petee
> someone else should
Isn't that kinda what you're suggesting here? Most piles of trash aren't caused by homeless, its residents, so why should they need to be responsible? Residents could just buy their own cans as its their own problem
gnkyfrg
[dead]
eru
The homeless aren't exactly the best workforce. For many, there's a reason they are homeless despite plenty of support systems that helps people become more 'homeful'.
Similar, but generally less so, for some of the unemployed.
If you want to 'mobilize' people, just advertise jobs normally and use a normal hiring process. One that should, of course, be open to currently homeless or unemployed.
For your proposal, compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000
test6554
I have never really felt the allure of living in a big city. Higher cost of living, smaller living spaces, noisy neighbors, rats apparently...
echelon
More restaurants, more music, more entertainment, more culture, "scenes", more romantic partners, more job opportunities, high energy, hustle, fashion, always something to do, etc.
Cities are great when you're young.
tombert
They are, but man the appeal does wear off, at least it did for me.
I moved here when I was 24, and I loved it for the first 8 years. Almost overnight, when I was 32, I realized that I actually don't enjoy living in the city anymore. It's loud, expensive, I don't really do "indie" restaurants, I don't like most art, and I'm married so I don't really need more romantic partners.
I still live in NYC, purely because my current job won't let me move, but I have been looking for an escape.
eru
They are also good for business.
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notepad0x90
deploy remotely controlled small rat-like robots, where the public can sign up like a game to pilot those bots and kill rats to score points and make a small amount of profit.
Loudergood
This inevitably ends in someone breeding more rats.
notepad0x90
if it costs $0.50 to raise one rat, then the fee for killing one can be $0.05. storing them somewhere, feeding them,etc.. surely costs some amount. if people are just throwing stuff rats can eat, then nothing is new, that's what's happening today.
staplung
At $0.05 per rat, you'd have to kill 330 rats per hour to make minimum wage (in NYC it's $16.50/hr).
dullcrisp
Deploy larger independent autonomous rat-hunting creatures. The public can volunteer to feed them treats and rub their bellies.
dyauspitr
The public would kill people.
notepad0x90
only if the bots use poison. impact-based methods at worst would harm the feet of pedestrians, but the public would need to create accounts, receive payment,etc.. so tracking them down and arresting them would be trivial.
Imagine kids on their switches hunting for rats using robots!
olelele
I have a feeling the robots would lose...
jrflowers
The fact that they say it has reduced rodent sightings just makes it seem like the rats are in the bins now
https://archive.ph/GlQNI