Commercial Waste Customers and Private Carters

Effective date: April 27, 2025

Proposed Rule Full Text
DSNY-Proposed-Amendments-to-Rule-Relating-to-Commercial-Waste-Customers-and-Private-Carters.pdf

Adopted Rule Full Text
DSNY-Final-Rule-Relating-to-Commercial-Waste-Customers-and-Private-Carters.pdf

Hearing transcript
126011_01.06.25_DSNY_Public-Hearing-1wi.pdf

Adopted rule summary:

Section 16-116(a) of the New York City Administrative Code requires commercial establishments in New York City to arrange for the removal of solid waste by a licensed private carter or by obtaining a trade waste permit from the New York City Business Integrity Commission (BIC) allowing the establishment to dispose of its own solid waste. Section 16-116(b) requires commercial establishments to post a sign noting the day and time that such establishment’s trade waste is picked up or, if such establishment removes its own waste, the sign must note the registration number issued by the BIC. Section 16-116(c) exempts from these requirements any commercial establishment that generates infrequent or insignificant amount of waste and authorizes the Sanitation Commissioner to promulgate rules determining what constitutes infrequent waste or insignificant amounts of waste. Section 1-06 of Title 16 of the Rules of the City of New York currently provides that commercial establishments must generate less than 20 gallons of trade waste within a seven-day period to meet the definition of infrequent waste or insignificant amounts of waste to be exempt from the requirements of section 16-116(a) and (b).

This rule lowers the threshold of trade waste that is considered to be infrequent waste or insignificant amounts of waste from 20 gallons to 1 gallon within a seven-day period. This reduction is necessary because some commercial establishments have been setting out their trade waste at the curb for DSNY to collect or setting such material in DSNY street corner litter baskets. This rule makes it clear that a commercial establishment must retain a private carter to collect and remove trade waste generated at such establishment for proper disposal if such establishment generates more than 1 gallon of trade waste within a seven-day period.

Commercial establishments are already required by rule to place their waste out in a bin or container. This rule also allows any commercial establishment that generates 20 gallons of waste or less over a period of seven consecutive days to share these containers with another commercial establishment, provided that both entities are customers that have agreements with the same private carter in accordance with all rules and regulations and follow all applicable rules relating to the set-out of materials for a private carter.

Private carters sometimes utilize a “flat” billing method where they charge a customer the same flat monthly fee based on an estimate of the average amount of waste the customer produces. Rules of the BIC currently address waste surveys used to determine “flat” billing amounts. However, the BIC rules will not apply to designated carters subject to the Department’s commercial waste zone rules within an implemented commercial waste zone. See 17 RCNY 5- 02(h). Therefore, this rule ensures that private carters conduct waste surveys to generate an accurate estimate of the average amount of waste a customer produces when a “flat” billing method is used.

The Department received comments about the proposed rule from the public, which resulted in the following changes:
• extending the deadline to complete the initial waste survey from 30 calendar days to 90 calendar days in section 20-27(c);
• clarifying that the deadline to complete any subsequent waste surveys is 90 calendar days after a waste survey is requested in section 20-27(d);
• requiring private carters to reimburse customers for over-payments based on the results of the initial waste survey within 60 calendar days of completion of the survey in section 20-27(c);
• clarifying that carters are not permitted to retroactively seek additional payments from customers for under-payments based on the results of the initial waste survey in section 20-27(c); and
• removing the requirement that waste surveys must be performed annually in section 20-27(d).