The city says rat sightings are going down each month, trash is disappearing from roadways and more New Yorkers are placing their garbage in city-approved containers.<\/p>\n
Mayor Eric Adams said it all adds up to a turning point in his effort to shrink the city\u2019s rodent population. He\u2019s dubbed the citywide push to move garbage from sidewalk trash bags into rat-resistant bins the \u201ctrash revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
From last year\u2019s inaugural Rat Summit<\/a> to experimental tactics like pumping carbon monoxide into rat burrows, Adams has been trying new methods<\/a> to tackle the problem.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, he pointed to several milestones: 311 rat complaints have fallen for eight straight months, sanitation crews have cleared more than 15 million pounds of litter from highway shoulders and medians, and residents have already ordered or purchased nearly 900,000 official NYC Bins \u2014 well ahead of new containerization<\/a> rules that take effect next summer.<\/p>\n “The only revolution I want to see in our streets is the actual trash revolution: How do you go away from big cities believing that you must live in trash and filth and with rats?” Adams said during a press conference. “We have shown that that is not a reality and not something that we have to settle for.”<\/p>\n