Look, no hands: meet New York City's garbage truck of the future

For about a century, trash in New York City has been collected in much the same way: by throwing it in the back of a sanitation truck.

On Thursday, New Yorkers got their first glimpse of the future.

A prototype of the city's new garbage truck made its debut in Manhattan, and there was a noticeable difference. Gone was the gaping opening where sanitation workers typically throw bags of trash into; in its place was a mechanized side loader designed with Italian technology.

Automated side-loading garbage trucks are a common sight on the streets across America, but New York's version is different. Because the city is so dense and the waste is so voluminous, New York will introduce larger European-style dumpsters (imagine the sleek offspring of a dumpster and a more traditionally sized 96-gallon dumpster). As a result, the city needed a specialized truck that could transport the larger containers.

The truck is part of the city's move toward dumpsters, an approach used in cities like Buenos Aires and Barcelona, ​​Spain, and a departure from New York's ubiquitous scenes of small mountains of trash bags piled on curbs .

The change will require overhauling the city's massive waste collection operation, removing thousands of parking spaces and securing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade to pay for it during a period of budget cuts.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat entering his third year in office with a low approval rating, has made waste one of his top priorities. He hired a rat czar and argued that removing trash bags — and the rats that feed on them — is an important part of his efforts to improve the quality of life in the city.

Mr. Adams attended the truck's debut on Thursday, riding in the vehicle and watching a demonstration in which a container was lifted into the air while “Empire State of Mind” – the Jay-Z and Alicia Keys song that the mayor hailed as its own track's adopted theme song — played in the background.

Like the bucket reached its peakthe song reached the chorus: “Concrete jungle what dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do.”

“This is the most significant progress toward clean streets that New Yorkers have seen in generations,” the mayor said.

Sanitation officials met with experts from Turin, Italy and rushed to create the prototype of the truck, which uses a joystick to control the side loader. Next, they will start purchasing European-style containers.

The city's sanitation commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called the truck a “superweapon in the fight against filth,” combining an American truck chassis with a European side loader, which she said was “no small feat.”

The city's plan has changed somewhat since officials announced it last May. For smaller residential buildings with nine units or fewer, New Yorkers will be required to dispose of waste in smaller “wheelie bins” starting this fall. Apartment buildings with more than 30 units will require larger street containers.

Properties with 10 to 30 units can choose between dumpsters or dumpsters, which are assigned to a specific building and not shared between different properties.

City officials had initially estimated that as many as 150,000 parking spaces could be lost to make room for dumpsters. Their new estimate is about 30,000 parking spaces.

Since last September, the city has been running a small pilot program with shared containers in one 10 block area in West Harlemand officials said community feedback had been positive and rat complaints had decreased.

The pilot program will expand to the entire Community Board District 9 in West Harlem next spring. But notably missing from the mayor's press conference was local councilor Shaun Abreu, a key ally on waste issues, who this week voted against Mr. Adams on two criminal justice bills, thereby vetoing his pushed aside.

Clare Miflin, director of the Center for Zero Waste Designsaid she was concerned about the city's decision to allow buildings to rely on dozens of dumpsters when shared containers on the street are a better option.

“We don't want to make our sidewalks worse,” she said.

Earlier this week, Sanitation Services announced a long-delayed plan for a overhauling the city's commercial waste system. Commercial waste from office buildings and restaurants is handled separately from homes, and much of it is disposed of by private trucking companies – a dangerous sector that has come under much criticism.

The new system divides the city into 20 zones, where three karting companies were chosen for each. The first pilot district will take place in downtown Queens starting this fall.