Still, people who compost and supporters of the program — including former Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who had called for a citywide c...
Still, people who compost and supporters of the program — including former Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who had called for a citywide composting mandate — say it’s a Catch-22. Many residents want to compost, proponents say, but the program is not available in their neighborhood or building. Owners of buildings with 10 or more units must approve the program for residents to participate.
A citywide mandated program is the best way to increase turnout, advocates say, with the requirement that residents and businesses separate food scraps and yard waste from garbage. New York’s recycling mandate, which began in 1989, spurred the widespread separation of plastic, glass, metal and paper waste. Estimates place the cost of mandatory citywide composting, a distant goal for now, at between $40 million and $251 million per year.
The new administration of New York City Mayor Eric Adams
On Thursday, State Senator Brad Hoylman sought to counter the mayor’s decision, introducing a bill forcing the city to collect leftover food from each residence. During the mayoral campaign, Mr. Adams says the city in a campaign questionnaire that he would issue such a mandate.
Even before the pandemic, the city was way behind on Mr. de Blasio’s plan to adopt citywide composting by 2018, though officials acknowledge that New York might not meet his goals. zero waste without it.
The lag partly explains why, of the 3.1 million tons of trash New Yorkers produce each year, the city recycles less than 20 percentwell below other major cities like Seattle and San Francisco that have mandatory compost separation.
In 2020, before the pandemic and seven years after curbside compost pickup began in some neighborhoods, less than half of the city’s population had the ability to request brown compost bins for pickup by the service. sanitation. In the neighborhoods where trash cans were availableonly 10% of residents used them.
When Mr. de Blasio suspended the program, Kathryn Garcia resigned as sanitation commissioner, citing her disagreement over the cuts in her resignation letter (she later ran for mayor). Various private groups have helped fill the gaps in some neighborhoods. But they say they can’t replace the scale of a city program.
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