A new fixture just appeared in Central Park, and it proves that New York City’s infamous “war on rats” is far from over.
The product joining the front lines is a recycling bin specifically desiged to hold empty pizza boxes—which, apparently, are like the bat signal for the reviled rodents. According to an announcement from the Central Park Conservatory, the pizza box bin will be located adjacent to the Great Lawn as part of a pilot program that may be expanded in the future, depending on how its rat-repelling properties play out.
“The traditional circular waste bins are simply not designed to accommodate the boxes, leading to jammed cans that can attract rodents,” Central Park Conservancy spokesperson Kat Brady told NBC New York. “On a warm busy day, the conservancy can remove more than 100 boxes in this area of the Park alone.”
Setting aside the physical properties of traditional trash cans for a moment, Central Park’s pizza-centric bin has raised an age-old question: Is it okay to recycle a greasy pizza box in the first place? As Fast Company has reported in the past, a 2020 Domino’s partnership revealed the answer. That year, the pizza chain collaborated on a study with WestRock, its largest box supplier. They found that 73% of U.S. residents have a recycling program that accepts pizza boxes, and some grease and cheese stuck to the cardboard normally doesn’t affect the quality of the recycled product. The two companies also launched a platform for users to figure out if their municipality accepts recycled pizza boxes.
So, for anyone who’s not in Central Park, a regular old recycling bin should work just fine to discard a used pizza box. Per NYC’s Department of Sanitation, it can go with paper recycling, or in a brown bin for residents in a Curbside Composting area.
As for NYC’s war on rats—famously spearheaded by Mayor Eric Adams and his “rat czar,” Kathleen Corradi (yes, that’s a real job title)—one recycling bin seems unlikely to make any real dent in the problem at hand. However, Adams has assured New Yorkers that the fight is only just beginning. Yesterday, the city announced that it will host its inaugural National Urban Rat Summit this September. The summit will convene experts who are leading the charge on innovative pest management strategies, allowing them to dream up the next offensive against the city’s millions of rodent residents.
“New Yorkers may not know this about me—but I hate rats, and I’m confident most of our city’s residents do as well,” Adams said in the announcement. “With rat sightings down nearly 14% in our city’s rat mitigation zones year over year, we continue to make progress, but we’re not stopping there. The best way to defeat our enemy is to know our enemy.”