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This report assesses the cost burden of waste handling in residential buildings in NYC. With insights pulled from interviews, survey responses, and data, we provide waste containerization recommendations that have the potential to eliminate this cost, making buildings more affordable for tenants and owners alike, and rid the city’s sidewalks of two-wheeled bins. This project was a collaboration between the Center for Zero Waste Design and Center for Building in North America.

Managing waste within NYC’s residential buildings is space- and labor-intensive, resulting in substantial costs: an average of $75 per unit per month. These costs are passed on to New Yorkers through rent or maintenance charges. In comparison, the city pays about $35 per unit per month to collect and dispose of the waste.

In November 2024, the Department of Sanitation of New York (DSNY) rolled out plans for containerization of trash citywide, with 4-cubic-yard, on-street containers called Empire Bins for larger residential buildings and a mandate for 1- to 9-unit buildings to use two-wheeled bins. While heralded as a solution against rats, these solutions unfortunately make little impact on costs for buildings.

In this report, we ask why it costs building owners twice as much to bring their residents’ waste to the curb as it costs the city to collect, consolidate, and export the city’s waste over hundreds of miles. We look at the relationship between operational costs and soaring rents. We posit that waste containerization, if implemented correctly, has the potential to bring these operational waste costs down significantly – so that ambitious affordability measures benefit rent-burdened tenants without jeopardizing the livelihoods of owners of small buildings.