Unsightly and illegal clothing drop boxes are spreading across New York like rats — and they’re just as unsavory.
Now lawmakers are moving to rid city sidewalks of illegal bins, many of them placed by shady companies that provide little benefit to charities.
A City Council public hearing on a measure that would make it easier for the city to seize the eyesores and fine the operators is scheduled for Sept. 8.
Used-clothing collection bins are banned on city property, including public sidewalks and roads. Bins placed in parking lots and on private property with the permission of the property owner are legal.
The illegal containers are multiplying exponentially. In July alone, city inspectors tagged 670 bins — 11 times more than the 59 illegal bins they tagged in all of 2009. The city has marked more than 2,000 bins for removal so far this year.
Many bins overflow with uncollected items, are misused as trash receptacles and attract garbage pickers and vermin, opponents say.
“Illegal-clothing bins have emerged as a major concern across New York City,” said Josef Szende, who chairs a group put together by business-improvement districts to fight the bin blight.
The illegal bins are installed in the dead of night, officials say. And even when sanitation inspectors quickly tag them, the bins’ owners take advantage of regulations giving them 30 days to haul them away.
They remove them on the 29th day and usually set them up around the corner.
City Council members want to stop the clothing-bin carousel, with a bill that would allow the Sanitation Department to remove illegal boxes immediately.
The measure would also create a registry of legal bins and require bin operators to quantify their collections by weight. The bin owners could be fined if they fail to comply with the new rules.
“This legislation will remove these eyesores from public locations and hold those who place them accountable,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
The battle of the bins comes as the textile-recycling market has grown into a $1 billion behemoth in the United States.
Most donors don’t realize their old garments will never clothe the needy.