Uneducated view from a single video, but this seems incredibly inefficient? How many of these have to be processed on a weekly basis? I'd expect for such a size of vessel, the truck is in and out in < 15 seconds.

From some quick googling Manhattan itself is also considerably denser than Tokyo or Hong Kong or London or Singapore. There are probably other international ones denser (21,646 people per mi2 for Singapore is the closest I found, but 72K for Manhattan), but a quick search suggests it's not necessarily that commonly easily solved. There are probably some sizeable specifically dense areas in those places, at least in the Asian cities (especially Hong Kong just from "feel"), but I don't have that sort of granular knowledge.

Seems unlikely that trash is the only source of food for the rat population, too. Or that dumpsters or bins magically keep out the rats from the trash. Rats can be crafty!

> What makes garbage so special?

It accumulates fast.

I think it could be, as long as there is a political will within the city to fix the problem and the funds that would need to be allocated are there(which in NYC they have the money for this). I think it would be easier than you think, municipal waste management contracts are generally posted by cities every 3-10 years and they can very in scope of work whether it be collection, recycling services, landfill, compost... and within all of these services different cities will have different wants and needs and then generally companies post bids to compete for these contracts. Usually when a new contract is posted it is updated with the updated expectations of the cities; if the cities installs these new bins and expects trucks that can collect from them it will be done by the companies that make bids. These processes happen frequently and are B to B interactions so they get done a lot more efficiently than headaches with the city as an individual resident.

You could always install two of them.