NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams is on a mission to make the city cleaner.
At a Brooklyn press conference Thursday, Adams announced a new initiative, nicknamed “Get Stuff Clean,” which will mobilize several city agencies and direct funding to clean up New York.
“Our city needs to be clean,” Adams said. “I hear it over and over again. Overflowing waste baskets, lack of pickup. We were not having the right coordination in pickup times. And so residents were doing their job, we were not doing our job. When you had residents look around and say, 'Why can't we get something done in cleaning our city?' The American big cities, we're going forward, we're responding to that. We are going to get it done.”
Adams’ plan is to have the Department of Sanitation, Department of Parks, Department of Transportation, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Department of Environmental Protection collaborate on the new initiative, targeting 1,000 high-need areas for clean-up.
The plan is set to go into effect on Monday with teams of agency workers going directly into the neighborhoods to keep them clean. Adams said the clean-up efforts will be on a continued basis and an additional 200 sanitation employees will be hired to help accomplish the goal.
“In addition to the high-visibility effort, we're restoring funding to maintain cleaning at hundreds of locations citywide, including the ends of DOT bridges in the long highways and off-ramps,” Adams said. “Our highways and our ramps, particularly leading from our airports, they are the welcoming mats for our city. And it's a poor reflection when you get off a flight coming from abroad and you see a dirty highway entry and exit ramps. We can do better and we will do better.”
The mayor explained that new evening shifts will be created, particularly for hotspot cleaning and rat control, adding that he absolutely hates rats.
“We're going to kill rats and do a rat mitigation program in this city,” Adams said.
Illegal dumping is also still an issue in the city, so Adams said part of the initiative will include funds for camera enforcement to help zero-in on the dumpers.
“This is an important initiative that we are taking seriously in every level of agencies that are responding to the issues that we are facing around cleaning in this city,” Adams said. “This is the teamwork that is going to make New York City the cleanest city in America.”
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