New York City may be famous for its pizza, but it’s infamous for its rats. Now, city officials want to help New Yorkers dispose of one to fight the other.

On Friday, NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue announced new trash bins custom-built to hold pizza boxes have been installed at one park in each borough.

What You Need To Know

  • New trash bins custom-built to hold pizza boxes have been installed at one park in each borough

  • Six receptacles have been places in five parks across the five boroughs

  • NYC Parks seems to be following the lead of the Central Park Conservancy, which introduced its own version of the pizza box receptacles in Central Park earlier this year

Cardboard pizza boxes — generally wide, rectangular and difficult to place inside circular garbage bins — can block traditional trash cans, causing trash to overflow and resulting in more food sources for rats, the Parks Department said in a press release.

Enter: the new trash bins, which pay tribute to traditional New York pizza joints with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth design.

"Pizza Rat will find no quarter in city parks soon enough, thanks to these pizza-ready trash cans," Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi said in a statement. "This is yet another creative way the Adams administration is improving quality of life for people, not pests."

Six receptacles have been places in five parks across the five boroughs, the release said. The bins are located at:

"We all know that you shouldn't try to fit a square peg into a round hole, which is why we're deploying special trash cans just for pizza boxes to parks throughout the five boroughs,” Donoghue said in her own statement. “Now, pizza lovers throughout the city can help us keep our shared public spaces clean by disposing of their boxes in these special receptacles, fighting the scourge of rats and ensuring our greenspaces are litter-free.”

NYC Parks seems to be following the lead of the Central Park Conservancy, which introduced its own version of the pizza box receptacles in Central Park earlier this year.

One bin was placed at the East Pinetum, north of the Great Lawn near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which often serves as a site for parties and picnics.