Businesses in Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bedford-Stuyvesant have until Monday, Nov. 30, to sign a contract with a private trash carter authorized to work in the city’s new Brooklyn North commercial waste zone. A business that has not chosen one by then will be assigned a carter by the Department of Sanitation, at the maximum rate the law allows.

The sign-up period for the zone began Oct. 1, and the zone is fully in effect Dec. 1. Any business that produces commercial waste and is not collected by the city must sign a new written service agreement with a zone-authorized carter. Businesses that do not choose get the minimum service required by law: garbage collection twice a week, recycling once a week and organics once a week. The rollout, Phase 6 of the program, carries out Local Law 199 of 2019, which divided the five boroughs into 20 commercial waste zones.

Three carters are authorized for all levels of service in Brooklyn North: Action Carting Environmental Services, Boro-Wide and Cogent Waste Solutions. Carters that are not authorized cannot operate in the zone, and DSNY says they will face significant violations if they try. Five are authorized citywide only for large off-street dumpsters and compactors of 10 cubic yards or more: Action Carting, Boro-Wide, Century Waste Services, Recycle Track Systems and Waste Connections. Every carter must offer bundled service covering trash, recycling and organics, and must price recycling and composting below trash collection.