by Racheal Notto

NYC has a Waste Problem

In early May, New York City suspended curbside composting and electronics collection as a response to COVID-19 related budget cuts. It also temporarily shut down 175 community composting sites. This leaves the city’s residents in a lurch with no green mechanism to properly dispose of organics or unique recyclables, such as hazardous materials and e-waste. Currently, none of these services are expected to resume any earlier than July 2021. That’s a lot of waste to needlessly send to landfill. Even more concerning when you consider most of NYC’s trash is shipped outside the city and dumped in other communities.

NYC has a goal of sending zero waste to landfill by 2030. Unfortunately, every year we don’t reform our waste collection system and consumption driven habits, we get further away from achieving that goal. In 2019, NYC produced 3.25 million tons of waste. Of that waste, only 18% of it was recycled or composted. This is a HUGE problem. By not lowering our waste, NYC is actively contributing to the climate crisis by adding millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and trashing our environment. All of which is of course done in a way that disproportionately impacts poor neighborhoods and communities of color. Not to mention - it’s expensive. Shipping waste out of the city costs NYC $409M in 2019.

Check out this DSNY graphic breaking down what New Yorkers waste looked like in 2017. This tells you that 68% (organics + recyclables) of what is considered to be trash, could be diverted away from the landfill. The chilling reality is that we’re only properly recycling and composting about 18% of those items. The reason for such a low rate - lack of broad public education about recycling and composting, lack of public funding and infrastructure to support a more successful program, and uneven access to recycling and composting options. Check out this Politico series on the failures of New York City's recycling program for an even deeper dive on the waste issue.

 A Step in the Right Direction

Fortunately, New York City Council Members Antonio Reynoso (Sanitation Committee Chair) and Keith Powers are currently fighting to preserve composting and recycling citywide. On May 13th they introduced to NYC Council the Community Organics and Recycling Empowerment (CORE) Act. This legislation works to preserve proper residential waste disposal across the city at a time when public composting and recycling is financially under attack despite our desperate need to bolster them as one of many solutions to the climate crisis. 

The CORE Act would allow New Yorkers to recycle organic and inorganic recyclables at proper disposal sites. One part of CORE (Intro. 1942) mandates the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) establish and operate at least three organics drop off sites in each community district (there are 59 community districts in NYC). Organics waste makes up about ⅓ of the NYC waste stream. Diverting that from landfills is one of the easiest things the city can do to respond to climate change. Once properly collected, it can be turned into compost or energy via anaerobic digestion at NYC wastewater treatment plants. 

A little history about city run composting in NYC

In October 2013, NYC Council passed a local law requiring DSNY to establish voluntary pilot programs for organic waste collection for residences and schools. Before that composting in the city existed only through non-profits, farmers’ markets, community gardens, and the Parks Department. DSNY rolled out the residential organic waste curbside collection pilot program from 2013 to 2018. In 2018, the NYC vision was updated to reaffirm that all residents would have access to compost their food and yard waste through either curbside collection or nearby drop-off locations by the end of 2018. However, the city did not meet that goal. DSNY stopped expanding the organics program in the spring of 2018 due to operational inefficiencies leaving many neighborhoods without access to curbside organics. In areas where organics pick-up was available, only 10% of the organic waste was separated and collected. These low numbers are partly because individual participation is not mandatory and building management approval is sometimes required for participation. Earlier this year, NYC Council publicly stated their support for mandating citywide curbside organics separation and collection. 

The other part of CORE (Intro. 1943) mandates DSNY establish and operate at least one community recycling center in each community district to collect recyclable materials that shouldn't be thrown away with our regular trash (i.e. electronics and hazardous waste). By New York state law, electronics cannot be thrown out with regular trash. With the suspension of electronics collection and the proposed NYC budget cuts in response to Covid-19, there are currently no alternatives for proper electronics waste disposal. 

 Some details about the CORE Act as of June 16:

• The CORE Act doesn’t require the continuation of curbside organics collection. However, Council Members Reynoso and Powers stress that the ultimate goal is mandatory organics collection citywide. 

• CORE requires three organics collection sites because that reflects the current number of DSNY operated organics collection sites across NYC but the sites would be more equitably distributed. This would fix our current patchwork composting infrastructure.

• DSNY would run this organics and inorganics recycling drop-off site program while working with community partners. DSNY will need to establish new recycling sites to ensure equitable access. Some recycling sites already exist and can be incorporated into the program, such as that of the LES Ecology Center.

• CORE mandates this new program be fully set up and operational by June 2021. 

• There are no provisions to support micro haulers or community gardens, but there is opportunity to see them included.

Connections to Environmental Justice

The Coronavirus pandemic has underscored the uneven burdens borne between our communities. Trash handling is no different and inextricably linked to our health. Across NYC there is uneven waste collection and handling in communities of color. Out of 58 waste transfer stations, most are located in Newtown Creek (38%), South Bronx (3%) and Jamaica (3%). All of these neighborhoods are predominantly black and brown communities. All of those residents are at a higher risk for respiratory related illnesses because of poorer air quality there as numerous garbage trucks drive through spewing toxic fumes. Those disproportionately negative impacts are a given without even getting into the deeper discussion about trash incineration or unequal access to healthcare and green spaces. 

 While NYC is disproportionately trucking a lot of trash through communities of color, it’s also leaving those same communities behind when it comes to access to composting. Most DSNY operated organic waste drop-off sites are in Manhattan. Composting doesn’t just lower the amount of waste sent to landfill. It’s also integral in reviving soil health, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, creating more green jobs and deepening community engagement. 

The CORE Act increases equitable access to organic and inorganic recycling while improving air quality by reducing emissions from trucking waste and lowering the need for trash incineration. It has garnered the support of numerous environmental justice groups including representatives from the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYCEJA), ALIGN, Big Reuse, the Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Boards, members of the #SaveOurCompost coalition, BK Rot and many more.

Connections to Financial Responsibility

Pausing organics collection was the wrong move to save NYC’s budget. The climate crisis cannot continue to take a back seat. Composting saves the city a small amount of money and if handled better, it can turn into a revenue stream. Composting saves NYC money because the cost of sending organic waste to a composting site is lower than the tipping fees paid to deposit trash into a landfill. If the city efficiently ramped up composting it could actually make money. 

In a February 2019 study, "How Much Potential Revenue are New Yorkers Wasting by Trashing Organics?," the city’s Independent Budget Office calculated that if all of the 1 million tons of food and yard waste generated by New Yorkers annually were recycled into compost, it could produce $12.5 million in revenue. If the same amount were recycled into biogas and used to generate electricity, the potential revenue could be as much as $22.5 million.

While the value of the city’s organic waste will likely never offset the cost of processing or collecting organics, there is real value in what the city throws away. If DSNY’s organics collection program expanded, increasing the volume collected and processed, the revenue could help defray costs while making New York City more sustainable. The money saved by suspending NYC compost programs is insignificant compared to the rise in negative health and environmental effects we’ll now see.

What can you do to support the CORE Act?

Composting and proper recycling needs to continue! To do so will require lots of public outreach to representatives. On June 15th, the NYC Council Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management held its first hearing on the CORE Act. There was a tremendous outpour of support from New Yorkers for this bill. Council Members Donovan Richards, Mark Levine and Justin Brannan are now co-sponsors of CORE with Powers and Reynosos.

The next step is for the CORE Act to either have another hearing or council members will vote on it. If you live in NYC, contact your council members and ask them to support the CORE Act. If you don’t know who your city council member is, you can find out here. You can also use this NY League of Conservation Voters form to send a message to your elected officials in support of the legislation.

While you’re contacting your representatives, you can also tell them you support reinstating the composting budget. The NYC budget will be finalized at the end of June so there’s still time to put pressure on our elected officials to defund the police and use some of that money to reinvest in composting. 

#SaveOurCompost

I can’t write about composting related legislation without giving a shout out to the #SaveOurCompost campaign. They’ve been a driving force for highlighting the irresponsibility of Mayor Bill de Blasio cutting the NYC compost budget, getting public attention to reinstate funding for public composting, and rallying the public and elected officials to loudly support composting in NYC. 

They’re fighting to keep composting free and public in NYC. Here’s their vision:

Short-term solution: Immediately restore $7M in funding to community-based composting programs. This can be done with the NYC Executive Budget, which will be finalized at the end of June 2020, and can go into effect July 1, 2020.

Medium-term solution: Pass the CORE Act to expand composting and recycling in an equitable way. This would go into effect sometime between 2020 - 2021.

Long-term solution: Make composting mandatory across NYC, just like recycling. With more people participating, composting can become a source of income for the city, rather than an expense. #SaveOurCompost would like to see this in effect by 2021.

NYC Legislative Process

In case anyone wants to understand the NYC legislative process a little better, here’s a brief overview.

You can learn more via the NYC Council Legislation.