New York City trolled for only just discovering ‘revolutionary’ wheelie bins

This mayor was stoked to introduce a “game changer” for his famous city – but his press conference has gone viral for the wrong reasons.

New York City has discovered wheelie bins.

In what the famous tourist destination is calling a “trash revolution” to clean up the streets and curb the city’s problem rat population, wheelie bins will finally be introduced instead of leaving rubbish bags on the street.

But those watching on from across the world can’t believe wheelie bins don’t already exist there.

NYC mayor Eric Adams began his press conference rolling in a bin and proudly demonstrating how to use it before celebrating with colleagues.

He said “many people thought it was impossible” that these wheelie bins were going to be part of the city’s “trash revolution”.

“We all have one unified dislike, and those are those pesky New York City rats,” Mr Adams said.

“They’re getting more and more bold. They no longer run from you. They just hang out and just do what they want. We want to make sure we change that in a real way.”

There is estimated to be about three million rats in New York City.

NYC department of sanitation commissioner Jessica Tisch described the official NYC bin as a “beautiful, rat-fighting piece of engineering”.

Ms Tisch is the woman behind the famous TikTok audio: “The rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement. But the rats don’t run this city, we do”.

After uttering the two sentences in 2022 she became a social media sensation and viral meme.

New York City mayor Eric Adams presents the city’s first wheelie bin.

This week’s wheelie bin announcement, which was intended to impress New Yorkers, has also gone global – with Europeans and Australians baffled by concept of wheelie bins being new.

“Oh my word! Are they seriously showing their constituents how to use a trash can?” wrote one person.

“Huh, they don’t have wheelie bins? What century do they live in?” said a second.

“How the hell is this revolutionary??” agreed another.

“So they finally figured out putting your trash in piles on the sidewalk is not a good idea,” mocked someone else.

“If I were the Mayor of NYC, I would have done this secretly one weekend, and if anyone asked, I would pretend we’ve been doing it for decades like every other city and town in the country,” suggested another.

New Yorkers leave their rubbish bags on the sidewalk for pick up. Picture: Charly Triballeau / AFP

One social media user, not understanding how it could possibly be the announcement of a regular wheelie bin, wrote: “I’m confused … are these like a new type of wheelie bins or the same wheelie bin I’ve had outside my house my whole life and they’ve just discovered them?”

“I think this technology needs further testing before it’s rolled out. Seems promising though!” one person joked.

One Aussie posted a picture of four colour-coded wheelie bins on the kerb, captioned: “Australia … living in the future.”

Americans living outside the Big Apple quickly defended the rest of the nation, saying New York City was “bizarre” and that they had wheelie bins in suburbia “the whole time”.

While it may seem like an obvious upgrade, not all New Yorkers were welcoming of the concept.

Some claimed their rubbish bags were bigger than the wheelie bin, questioned where will they keep them, and were concerned the bins would take up parking space on the street.

The NYC mayor at least admitted the city was behind the times.

“It has been for too long the public space has been hijacked. We all see it, mounds and mounds and mounds of plastic bags,” Mr Adams said.

“When I go abroad and when I visit other countries, they are blown away that we still use plastic bags. We are leaders. We lead from the front, and we’re going to catch up with everyone else and make sure we get these plastic bags off our streets.”

From November 12 this year, all buildings in New York City with one to nine residential units will be required to put their rubbish in a bin. Of the 765,000 residential buildings in the city, 95 per cent of them have fewer than nine units.