What happens to the leftovers in the garbage is both raw (rats, junk juice) and heavy (methane emissions, climate crisis). In New York, the fate of old food has recently been Inflamed passion and cause a political stench.
But now, the city is trying to turn the composting drama of the past with a new plan to help more New Yorkers sort their organic waste — food scraps and yard waste that can be turned into organic waste. rich soil – from other non-biodegradable garbage.
New York long ago Falling behind other major cities in the recycling of organic waste, accounting for a third of the waste sent to landfills. In 2020, City Hall suspended the composting program and plans to expand it citywide, citing the strained pandemic budget. When it came back, there was a opt-in process serving only a small number of neighborhoods.
Eric Adams had composting work across the city on his “Getting the Job” list during his mayoral campaign. But after taking office, he called the program “broken” and scrapped it to save money. He vowed to find a cheaper, more efficient, fairer approach, but compost devotees were furious.
Now, City Hall is announcing a new pilot program that it says will attract more participants at a lower cost. It also has a new organizing principle: no drama.
City officials plan to announce Monday that starting in October, garbage trucks will pass through every neighborhood in Queens each week to pick up food scraps and yard waste.
Jessica Tisch, the sanitation commissioner, says that developing the program and making garbage separation more of a headache than a new city service is a priority for her department.
“Simple and easy to use,” Ms. Tisch said in an interview on Sunday. “There’s no drama for New Yorkers.”
Environmental officials and advocates say the key to success is to market the program as one that will make litter cleaner, both in homes and on the streets, while reducing the growing rat problem. growth of the city. That could make composting attractive, they argue, for people who rarely think about the climate impact of their waste. passionate environmentalists.
“The whole concept,” Ms. Tisch said, “is that New Yorkers want to do the right thing and if you make it easy enough, they will.”
She said that new compost trucks will appear. No need to opt-in (“It’s a nerd”). No participation required (“We’re not there yet”). And there is no “bin drama”. The city will provide brown bins as in the current opt-in program, which will continue. But in Queens, yard waste, such as leaves, can also be put in bags. For leftovers, Any box is fine – as long as it is sealed and rat proof.
Ms. Tisch also plans to eliminate what she calls an entirely different “level of drama”: Apartment residents will no longer need approval from building managers, who often veto their claims. them about getting organs in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan neighborhoods. it.
Sanitation officials say building managers often assume that bins mean more clutter, more odors and more trouble for building managers.
“They were wrong,” said Josh Goodman, assistant commissioner for public affairs at the Sanitation Department. “Trash is gross now. Rat tore bag now. If the organic matter is kept in a separate, closed container, it will be much harder for rats to get in.”
The Adams administration also hopes the Queens plan will reduce political drama.
Several environmental advocates, climate experts, public housing residents, community gardeners, and others who have lobbied for successive administrations to adopt the popular composting method have been consulted about plan. They cautiously call it a promise.
“This is likely a metamorphosis of the New York City composting process,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a New York City attorney and environmental director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Hopefully a beautiful butterfly will appear.”
The “butterfly” will be a popular roadside compost collection for everyone in the city, he says.
City Hall could be pushed in this direction in any case. A City Council bill would require Citywide mandatory organ collection gathered a number of sponsors with veto power, including speakers, Adrienne Adams and Sandy Nurse, the chair of the hygiene committee. Mr. Goldstein thinks the Queens . plan do not take away the need for that measure and said its timing “probably not a coincidence.”
The ultimate goal is to capture the eight million pounds of compostable waste that now goes to landfills every day, where it releases methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than with carbon dioxide. Even in counties that opt-in to compost, only 10% of residents participate, meaning trucks travel long distances between stops. The mayor has argued that the cost per ton of organic matter collected is too high.
Sanitation officials say that by designing more efficient routes and work schedules, their plan has more than halved the organizations’ operating costs per community, from $860,000. down to an expected $320,000. They say the new cost of the program is $2 million, which is less than $1 per Queens resident.
Improvements include trucks that will follow compost-only routes to reach more homes each day. Other routes will use trucks on either side to collect recyclables and organics. The department will hire 76 new cleaning workers using only organic matter, helping to reduce overtime pay.
Queens has more trees and yards than other counties and was chosen for yard waste as the entry point that has helped cities like Seattle and Toronto achieve high composting rates, as people had to put cuttings and leaves in the yards. private bag.
The county’s diversity – dense apartment complexes, single-family homes, large public housing complexes, and various underserved areas – will also examine best practices. for common and equitable composting, officials said.
Mr. Goodman says another pilot program has exceeded expectations. The city places sealed compost bins on the sidewalk. By unlocking them with an app and closing a handle, people can accumulate organic waste. The crates, which are located mainly in the Astoria area of Queens, are filled daily, with almost no unsuitable items.
The new street bins, mainly in Upper Manhattan, South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, will bring the total to 400.
The city’s organic waste is routed to a facility on Newtown Creek, which converts it to renewable energy, and to a municipal composting site on Staten Island, where it turns it into feedstock for industries. parks and community gardens or sold in bulk.
The city also plans to spread the word that people can keep compost in their freezer or closed box in small house between the autumn days to make their kitchen less smelly.
“It’s not new,” Goodman said. “It’s in your trash anyway.”
