Keeping the lid on garbage will go a long way toward reducing the rat population, health officials said yesterday.
The city will soon begin putting up signs urging people to dispose of their trash in closed containers, rather than just dumping it on the sidewalks in black garbage bags as part of their “Starve a Rat” program.
“You can starve them if they can’t get into your trash,” said Sandra Mullin, a Health Department spokesperson, after a City Council committee hearing on pest control.
Councilman Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan), whose district is plagued by bold rodents, said, “You can see them flying in and out of the black bags.”
Perkins, who chairs the committee, is looking into ways city residents can move from using black bags to dispose of garbage to using only metal or plastic cans with tight lids.
“These bags are already going to be banned on the streets of Washington, D.C.,” he said.
Perkins also wants the administration to begin keeping and using statistical data in the rodent battle, just the same way they are used in crime fighting.
“We have Compstat, Healthstat; why not Ratstat?” he asked.