New York City’s recent passage of five zero-waste bills, including one mandating curbside organics collection, is receiving praise as a move toward financial probity, and environmental justice, and a crucial step in the city’s climate fight.
City council intends the bills adopted June 8 to speed up organics diversion, codify zero-waste targets, and expand recycling access, reports Smart Cities Dive.
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The near-unanimous vote by 49 out of 51 members formally sets a goal to divert 100% of NYC’s recyclable waste from landfills or incinerators by 2030. Another bill that mandates annual progress reports starting in 2024.
The target will involve some seriously heavy lifting: As of March, NYC’s diversion rate was 17.3%, says Smart Cities Dive.
Council showed equally strong support for measures to expand drop-off recycling centres, establish one hazardous waste centre for each of the city’s five boroughs, and open “at least 30 organic waste drop-off sites” across the city by spring 2024.
A bill to mandate curbside organics pickup for homes across the city by October, 2024 was adopted with 43 council votes in favour. The bill will have teeth, with delinquent homeowners receiving “compliance violation” notices starting April 2025.
The lower level of enthusiasm for the curbside organics bill reflects a decades-old debate on whether forcing residents to separate organics from the rest of the waste stream might backfire.
In council testimony last summer, Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch urged the city not to wield the hammer on organics.
“I believe you have to give people voluntary access to curbside food waste collection and allow them to develop the muscle memory of separating out their food waste material before we contemplate mandatory programs,” she said.
Eric Goldstein, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council disagreed, Smart Cities Dive writes. “The experience in other cities with successful organics collections programs has proven that municipalities must make such programs mandatory and build public support to ensure their effectiveness,” Goldstein wrote in a recent blog post.
Citing Seattle as an example, he said curbside organic collection programs “are not only useful in curbing global warming emissions, but in saving money for local taxpayers, too.”
Council Member Shahana Hanif, lead sponsor of the organics bill, said the legislation’s mandatory nature is critical to making it cost-effective. Councillor Sandy Nurse, lead sponsor of the five-bill package, said a good waste system “is not simply a matter of convenience, but a matter of environmental justice and equity.”
“These bills are an act of real solidarity with communities that are fighting for clean air and water, like in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and upstate New York, where we send millions and millions of pounds of waste every day,” Nurse told her fellow councillors in the lead-up to the vote.
