NYC NOW - Could European Style Trash Bins Clean Up NYC? The City Is Betting Yes

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration plans to add more than 6,500 curbside trash containers across the five boroughs as part of a push to clean up streets and cut down on rats. WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley explains where the new Empire Bins are going, why the rollout could cost parking spaces, and how the city hopes to fully containerize trash by 2032. Plus, WNYC health reporter Caroline Lewis breaks down a new Bellevue Hospital study on serious bike and scooter injuries, what it found about e bikes, helmets, alcohol, and who is getting hurt most.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. New York City's gone European, at least when it comes to trash. The city is expanding containerized trash pickup with empire bins. Plus, e-bikes are all over the place. Some swirling in and out of lanes, speeding on the sidewalks. It's not just annoying, but it's dangerous. On today's episode, we look into a study that finds that a major Manhattan trauma,

Center is treating a growing number of patients with serious injuries from e-bike accidents. We'll get into that, too. But first, here's your news headlines. New York Congressman Jerry Nadler will introduce legislation this week intended to keep President Donald Trump from putting his name on Penn Station and other federal buildings in the city. No more pressuring officials to factor in his vanity when making decisions that affect millions of people. Penn Station is a serious public infrastructure project, not a monument to Donald Trump. New York City leaders and advocates gathered at Penn Station over the weekend to tease

the legislation and call for more oversight and transparency on the Penn Station overhaul, including how the redesign will be paid for. The president is expected to select one of three proposals for Penn Station's redesign next month. It's been 10 years since marijuana was legalized for medical use in New York, yet cannabis researchers say there's still a shortage of quality data on the drug's risks and benefits. But a new change in federal policy could pave the way for more research. Margaret Haney is a professor at Columbia University who studies cannabis. It's just distressing that the industry is telling us what a medication is,

and politicians are telling us what a medication is in lieu of any of the data we so desperately need. Henney says federal restrictions on cannabis research have made it difficult to conduct rigorous studies. But last week, the Trump administration reclassified medical marijuana as a less dangerous drug, which could ease some of those restrictions. If you were hoping to get discounted tickets to see Gotham FC next month, you're too late. They're already gone. Over the weekend, Mayor Zora Mundani partnered with the reigning National Women's Soccer League champions to release 1,000 tickets for five bucks to the last.

their May 9th home game against the Boston Legacy. The team says the tickets sold out in less than an hour. You can still get regular price tickets, though. Gotham FC play at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey. We're going to take a quick break, but when we return, we'll discuss New York City's trash revolution. Stay close. Welcome back.

New York City says thousands more curbside trash bins are coming to the five boroughs. The plan would add more than 6,500 Empire bins by the end of 2027, expanding containerized trash pickup to more neighborhoods. But the rollout comes with tradeoffs. The city says full containerization could eventually require converting hundreds of thousands of parking spaces citywide.

Mayor Zoramam Dhani says it's part of a push for cleaner streets and fewer rats. WNYC and Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley has been covering this. Liam, welcome to the show. Hello. What is the city announcing here? Tell me more about this plan. This is the most significant expansion to date of these empire bins,

which were introduced to us under Mayor Eric Adams, uptown in Harlem, a couple years ago. Yeah, I remember that. Right. Now those are coming to all five boroughs under Zoroamadani, who says, we're going to use these empire bins that sit at the curb in place of those big piles of trash bags that you're probably used to. Oh, yeah.

We see them all over. Everyone's. Yeah. Everyone's walking past really fast. So, you know, a rat doesn't cross your feet. Anyway, let's start with the basics here. What are these empire bins? How do they work?

And why does the city believe that they're better than leaving trash bags on the curb? Okay. They're made in Spain. A lot of European cities have this system of, like, no piles of trash bags. They get assigned to specific buildings. Any building with 30 or more units will just get these bins for trash. Buildings with 10 to 30 units will have an opt-in choice. And then one of these big, special new garbage trucks will come with like an arm that'll come out from the street and the operator will just lift it up with the hydraulic system, dump the trash in.

The bin is locked so only the super whoever can throw the trash out during the week. And that's what they're calling like the trash revolution is introducing this to New York City, basically. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. And as you mentioned, that this program began under former mayor Eric Adams. I've actually seen these bins. I've seen them in Harlem. I've seen them in Fort Green.

Now, as you mentioned, you know, Miram Dani is expanding this program. What does that signify about how effective or necessary the city believes this has been? Under Adams, there was data that showed when these bins are in place, rat sightings went down. And people I talk to in Harlem say that. They're introducing them already.

There's some of these bins in Fort Green. I think the city is expected. acting to see the same results. And it shows that Mom Donnie's, you know, he's fully on board with these. I remember asking him when he's running for mayor, like about things that he supported that Adams did. And this was one of them. Pretty much everybody running for mayor was like, yeah, let's do it.

We like these bins. He's embracing this program for sure. Yeah. But the obvious tradeoff here is parking. This phase brings, as I mentioned, more than 6,500 bins. and the city says full containerization could eventually require converting thousands of parking spaces citywide. How is the administration justifying that scale of change? It depends on how you look at this.

Is it a replacing of parking? You know, if you talk to people at sanitation department, they're like, we happen to have been letting New Yorkers store their cars for free at that curb space. It's for the city. It's for the city. And now we're just going to be putting an empire bin in a couple of times. those spots wherever there's, you know, a building large enough to warrant it. So it fits with this overall rethinking of how we use public space that's been going on for years now. But of course,

if you tell somebody who's, it's Sunday night, they just got back from visiting somebody. And it's 9.30. Now they've got to spend an extra 20 minutes looking for parking. That will be a change. You know, Liam, people were already complaining about city bikes taking up parking spaces. Now these trash bins will be doing the same. What do you have to say? about that? I think it's a good example of some city bike's been around for 10, 11 years and I remember the lawsuits and the

fights over individual city bike docks being placed in the roadway at the curb and this is consistent with a change in how we're using some of that public space. Yeah. So I think

be prepared for fights. The city is definitely reclaiming its space right now. And people will fight about it. And then there are, There are restaurants who do outdoor dining and they put up those sheds, right, to expand their restaurant. What about those restaurants? That's an interesting case because it is, you know, a private business and there's plenty of people on both sides of that issue. Though, as you mentioned, it's been kind of scaled back compared to 2020, 2021 when we saw a lot more of those.

Well, now there's a process, right? It's more rigorous. Yeah. These empire bins, this is the city with their authority saying we run that space. Yeah, and, you know, obviously people without a vehicle, they don't care about that, right? But I know you've been talking to folks. What have you been hearing? The first reporting I did on this was in Harlem where people said, yes, the parking situation is annoying, but I do see less rats. Sanitation officials say I get some complaints, but same thing. Less rats. And people mostly seem to be excited about these bins.

The super's like them because it's easier for them. They can just. continually put the trash in the bin, it reduces, in some cases, the space they need to dedicate to trash in the building because the bin's ready to go throughout the week. It doesn't move. It's there. So it's people are getting used to them in some places, yeah. Okay. So which neighborhoods are getting these bins first? And what determined where they will go? Density, where the trucks can be located. There's a lot of like municipal factors to go into it, but let me, I'll list the, I'm going to read the neighborhoods to you. Okay.

It's a lot of them. Brooklyn, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Bronx, Hunts Point, Longwood, University Heights, Mount Hope, Morris Heights, Fordham Heights, Manhattan, the West Village, Soho, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Nolita, Queens, Sunnyside, Hunter's Point, Woodside, and then finally Staten Island's getting them on the North Shore. This is being rolled out by the end of next year. So for the first time, there'll be empire bins in every borough. So that's what we're, that's what's on the menu. Cool. All right. So bigger picture here, the city is targeting full containerization by 2032.

If this rollout succeeds, how different could New York streets actually look by then? It's going to be more European. It'll probably be cleaner. Yeah. There won't be those big rotting piles of garbage with like garbage juice flowing all over the place. I hate garbage juice. They'll still be recycling set out in recycling bags, but the streets are going to look different for sure. I'm looking forward to it. See you in 2032.

See you then. That's WMYC's Liam Quigley. Thanks a lot, Liam. Thank you. E-bikes are all over the city and have become increasingly popular in recent years with both delivery workers and commuters. But as they've gotten more common, some local officials have also raised concerns about safety. A new study finds that a major Manhattan trauma center is treating a growing number of patients with serious injuries from bicycle and scooter accidents. And more and more of those injuries involve electric vehicles. But are e-bikes really more dangerous than traditional bicycles?

WMYC health reporter Caroline Lewis has been reporting on this. And she joins me to talk about what this study reveals about e-bike safety. Hey, Caroline. Hi, Jena. So where did this study come from? Who decided to take a look at this? Yeah, so this study zooms in on what's happening inside one busy trauma center, Bellevue Hospital. And the idea for the study actually came from a neurosurgery resident who was training there, Hannah Weiss.

Well, as a neurosurgery resident, we spend a lot of nights in the hospital. She was working a lot of night shifts and kept noticing night after night that more patients were coming into the ER after bike and scooter accidents. Another patient fell off a e-bike. Another patient fell off a scooter. Pedestrian hit by scooter. Pedestrian hit by e-bike. So she went to her mentor and said, we need to study this. So she's noticing this in real time from her shifts overnight.

Yeah. And once she did start looking into it through this study, she found that bicycle and scooter accidents really were becoming more common. The study logged 914 patients injured from these accidents over five years between 2018. and 2023, with the numbers sort of going up throughout that period. This showed us that this is not just a niche issue, but rather a major urban public health issue that we had identified. It also showed that electric vehicles, e-bikes or e- scooters, were also making up a bigger

and bigger share of these accidents. So they went from about 8% of all bike and scooter accidents in 2018 to more than half by 2023. Wow, that's a really big shift there. So are e-bikes just more dangerous? in general? Well, I did ask her this, and her answer was more nuanced than you might expect. We didn't find that necessarily it's more dangerous to be on an electric bike, but rather it's just becoming more dangerous in general just because of how busy the streets are.

She said, you know, based on this particular study, there was no evidence that e-bikes actually cause worse injuries. So once you are in a crash, whether it's an e-bike or an old-school, you know, mechanical bicycle, the injuries tend to look similar. And I think that raises the question then of whether the rise of e-bikes is really driving this overall increase in accidents or if there's something else going on. Weiss said one potential explanation is that there's just more people on bikes and scooters these days in general. They've become available for share rides, you know, throughout the city and when they did not used to be. So it's easier than ever to get on an electric bike or a bike with a little bit of a boost, you know, and be able to ride. But she said that's just a theory. You know, more research is really needed to understand exactly what's happening here.

And how serious are these injuries that are being seen at Bellevue Hospital? So a lot of them really are pretty serious. Over the course of the study, more than two-thirds of the patients who came in were admitted to the hospital and about half needed some kind of surgical intervention. And then on the more serious end of the spectrum, about a third of the patients had traumatic brain injuries. What makes these injuries as serious as they are? Because we're talking about a third of patients with traumatic brain injury, two-thirds admitted to the hospital. Yeah. So one of the biggest factors they found, maybe unsurprisingly, was helmets. Only about a third of the people in the study were wearing one.

If patients did not wear a helmet, they had significantly higher rates of traumatic brain injury and facial trauma. Right. And, you know, we know that city bikes, they don't come with helmets. Were there any other factors at play? The other big factor they found was alcohol. About 20% of patients, so that's one in five, were intoxicated. And alcohol use did correlate with more serious injuries and a greater likelihood of ending up in the ICU. And people who came in drunk were also less likely to have a helmet on.

So that could be part of it. Yeah, not drunk driving, but drunk riding. With that in mind, what's the role of cars in all of this? Were most of these injuries the result of car crashes? Yeah, so cars were definitely a major factor. About half of all these accidents involved people being hit by cars. And then another third involved people falling off their bikes or scooters. And there were also about 70 cases in which pedestrians were hit by bicycles or scooters.

And I know that's something a lot of people in New York will talk about. And it was, you know, less than 10% of the accidents that were recorded, but they actually had some of the worst outcomes. And so I think these findings raise harder questions that the study surfaces but doesn't necessarily answer about, you know, what policy or infrastructure changes are needed to make everyone safer. And Weiss was clear that she's a neurosurgeon, not a policy expert. I think her biggest takeaway was that there are clearly some common sense safety measures people can take, you know, maybe not. riding a bike while drunk, and most importantly, wearing a helmet. Yeah, and it's getting warmer, Caroline. It may be city bike summer.

I'm certain that's the truth for myself, but please wear a helmet. I know it's not always the cutest option. But I think important nonetheless. Yeah, that's WMYC health reporter Caroline Lewis. Thanks a lot, Caroline. Thanks, Jane. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre.

See you next time.