At the same time, after more than a decade of fights and bureaucratic hurdles, the city is finally nearing completion of work on several marine transfer stations that would allow millions of tons of trash to be moved out of the city on barges rather than on trucks.

Taken together, the changes could transform waste disposal in New York.

But when it comes to trash, grand proposals have a way of being sidelined. The four marine transfer stations were proposed by the Bloomberg administration in 2004. Currently, only one is operational; the others have been delayed by years of court battles and community opposition.

But Kathryn Garcia, the sanitation commissioner, said that the last hurdles had been cleared and construction on all of the stations would soon be completed. “We hope to be done by 2018,” she said.

When they are all up and running, the stations will handle all of the residential trash in the city and will be able to take in half of the city’s commercial trash as well.

Revamped commercial collection could start as early as 2021, she said.

“It’s a very significant change,” she said. “Anytime I touch anything on the residential side, I touch 8.4 million people. Make a change on the commercial side, and I touch every single business in the city.”

Unlike with other agencies, she said, if anything goes wrong in the transition — even for a day — the public will notice and the political fallout will be swift.