New York City's Department of Sanitation issued a new rule that food-related businesses must use lidded containers to dispose of their trash starting Tuesday.

Those businesses will no longer be allowed to leave their trash bags on the side of the street. The initiative is all a part of the effort to get rats out of the city. The rule applies to restaurants, delis, bodegas, grocery stores and any business possibly offering its next meal to a rat.

The change will roll out in two parts. The first is a warning period that starts Tuesday and pertains to food-related businesses only. The department says these businesses will have until Sept. 1 to get lidded containers for their trash. After that, fines will be issued to those that don't.

The second rule will start Sept. 5 and extends to all chain businesses with five or more locations, regardless of what they sell.

The DSNY says these new rules will take four million pounds of trash off the streets. They claim that since they started pushing for this new rule, rat complaints have already started to decrease.