Key Points
- DSNY will give away five Knicks-themed orange-and-blue litter baskets
- NYC residents 18 and older can enter once online by 5 p.m. July 3 at on.nyc.gov/basketgiveaway
- The baskets are full street-size: about 28 inches tall, 21.5 inches across, and 30 pounds
- Winners collect from Lower Manhattan; the cans debuted at the June championship parade
The Knicks' first title in 53 years produced an unlikely collector's item: the trash can. The Department of Sanitation is giving away five Knicks-themed litter baskets — the orange-and-blue bins it unveiled for June's ticker-tape parade — after the custom cans became coveted enough that fans started prying them off the street and listing them for thousands.
How to enter
New York City residents 18 and older can enter once online before 5 p.m. on July 3 at on.nyc.gov/basketgiveaway, providing a name, email, home address, and phone number, and opting into DSNY emails. Winners will be selected later this summer — and they will have to haul the prize themselves: a real, roughly 30-pound street basket about 28 inches tall and 21.5 inches across, collected from Lower Manhattan.
How a trash can became merch
The baskets were never for sale, which is exactly why DSNY is now formalizing a giveaway — the alternative was watching municipal property reappear on resale sites. It is the same championship-fever economy that already turned the title into product, from a customizable Knicks Air Force 1 to a Kith and Giorgio Armani Knicks collection, and the same fervor that spilled into the streets after the parade. A 53-year drought is what it takes to turn a city's garbage hardware into memorabilia.
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