{"id":34665,"date":"2024-10-08T14:25:19","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T14:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/?p=34665"},"modified":"2024-10-08T14:25:19","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T14:25:19","slug":"mayor-adams-announces-completion-of-roll-out-of-first-ever-no-cost-pain-free-citywide-curbside-composting-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/34665","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Adams announces completion of roll-out of first-ever no-cost, pain-free citywide curbside composting program"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams and New York city department of sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced the completion of the roll-out of automatic, guaranteed, free, simple, weekly collection of compostable material\u00a0to every New Yorker across the five boroughs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When trucks left DSNY garages serving the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan just after 5:00 AM today, they were making good on a promise that the past administration had made for over a decade.<\/p>\n

That promise was long derided as impossible, but Mayor Adams committed to making it a reality in his\u00a02023 state of the city address.<\/p>\n

This program, which began in Queens in the fall of 2022 and expanded to Brooklyn in the fall of 2023, is now permanent and offered citywide \u2014 something achieved with a focus on sustainability, cleanliness, equity, and efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple: when food scraps end up in black bags on the street, they become rat food or methane emissions. Said Mayor Adams.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarting today, curbside composting is free and pain-free on every block and in every borough \u2014 something prior administrations have tried, but we got it done. I\u2019m grateful to Commissioner Tisch and the dedicated sanitation workers who work day-in, day-out to make this program possible and keep our streets clean for New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are waging a war against climate change. Our weapons are your banana peels, rotten tomatoes, and stale bread,\u201d said\u00a0Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, in all five boroughs, our easy-to-use curbside organics collection program will prevent these scraps from being shipped to emissions producing landfills, and instead turn them into compost and renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCurbside composting programs have existed in the city for over a decade, but none have ever served more than 40 percent of New Yorkers \u2014 until now,\u201d said\u00a0DSNY Commissioner Tisch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis administration has achieved the long-standing goal of bringing composting to every corner of the five boroughs, not as a niche program, but as a free, universal, easy-to-use service \u2014 one that will divert record amounts of material from landfills. We’re protecting the environment, fighting rats, and bringing equity to the city at large.\u201d<\/p>\n

While curbside composting programs have existed in New York City for the last decade, none have ever served more than approximately 40 percent of the city. Those composting programs had been plagued by stops and starts and complicated rules.<\/p>\n

This program\u2019s model \u2014 no sign-up required, , fewer restrictions on material and on type of bin \u2014 is a model that can work for all New Yorkers. Every New Yorker can now simply take anything from their kitchen or their garden \u2014 all food scraps, yard waste, and food-soiled paper \u2014 and set it out for collection in either a DSNY brown bin or their own labeled, lidded bin of 55 gallons or less.<\/p>\n

In addition, they may choose to line the bin with a clear bag or not, based entirely on their personal preference. This material is collected on the same day that residents already set out their metal, glass, plastic, and paper recycling.<\/p>\n

Since their initial launch in New York City\u2019s easy-to-use composting programs have proven to be highly effective.<\/p>\n

The fiscal year 2024 Mayor\u2019s management report\u00a0showed a 65 percent increase in compostable material diverted from landfills over the prior two years \u2014 a staggering total of 260 million pounds.<\/p>\n

The overall diversion rate \u2014 the total amount of material kept out of landfills and either processed into compost or waste-to-energy facilities \u2014 has increased for the last three consecutive years.<\/p>\n

Curbside service is only one part of the wraparound suite of composting services offered by DSNY. New York City is now home to approximately 400 Smart Composting Bins \u2014 24-hour drop-off sites where New Yorkers can bring anything from their kitchen and anything from their garden to be put to beneficial reuse. New Yorkers opened Smart Composting Bins over 1 million times this past fiscal year \u2014 a 300 percent increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Mayor Adams fulfilled a campaign promise by bringing DSNY collection of compostable material to every single New York city public school, helping to train the next generation of composters.<\/p>\n

Material collected through these programs is turned into either renewable energy to heat homes or into compost sold to landscapers and given away free to New Yorkers for use in their yards and gardens. Without these programs, these materials would all go into a landfill, becoming nothing but harmful greenhouse gasses.<\/p>\n

The DSNY Staten Island Compost Facility has produced approximately 40 million pounds of finished compost per year for the last decade. Under the Adams administration, that facility recently completed a major expansion, expanding its capacity to process food waste by 2,000 percent ahead of today\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Per local law passed by the City Council, participation in this program becomes mandatory in each borough when service starts, but fines cannot be written until April 2025.<\/p>\n

The fine structure is the same as the existing requirements for the separation of metal, glass, plastic, and paper recyclables from trash, which starts at $25 for properties with one to eight residential units and $100 for properties with nine or more residential units.<\/p>\n

This is the exact same separation requirement New Yorkers already know from recycling programs, now extended to the one-third of residential waste that is compostable.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the mandate going into effect, DSNY is engaged in a major outreach effort, sending mailings to all covered residents, meeting with community boards and civic associations, and knocking on the doors of all buildings with fewer than 10 residential units in the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan. A similarly robust outreach effort previously proved effective in Queens and Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

While this program is for residential waste only, New York City\u2019s commercial waste zone program will also increase commercial diversion of compostable material.<\/p>\n

Under this program, businesses will pay their private waste carter less to remove compostable material than they do to remove trash, creating a meaningful financial incentive to keep commercial compostable material out of landfills.<\/p>\n

\u201cA citywide curbside organics collection program is vital to creating a true circular economy in New York City,\u201d said\u00a0New York City Chief Climate Officer and New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Rohit T. Aggarwala.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of simply discarding our organic waste, we are recovering energy and nutrients from this material at facilities like DEP\u2019s Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility and DSNY\u2019s Staten Island Compost Facility.<\/p>\n

This sustainable cycle of reuse creates valuable products, including compost and renewable energy, like biogas, which can be used to heat homes.<\/p>\n

This process has proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including methane.<\/p>\n

Through the end of June 2024, DEP processed approximately 330,000 wet tons of food scraps at Newtown Creek that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill and emitted harmful greenhouse gases. I want to thank Mayor Adams and DSNY Commissioner Tisch for their commitment to making curbside organics collection available to all New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis roll out is the city achieving another one of our\u00a0PlaNYC<\/em>\u00a0goals, and an important step towards improving our environment,\u201d said\u00a0Mayor\u2019s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis diversion will reduce the amount of solid waste generated within the city, the majority of which is currently processed and transferred in a handful of over-burdened environmental justice communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we have reached our goal of implementing curbside composting citywide, allowing us to divert from landfills and compost all 1 million tons of organic household waste New York City produces annually,\u201d said\u00a0New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a critical component for a sustainable future: compostable waste accounts for 34 percent of our residential waste, and 20 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. With curbside composting now in all five boroughs, we will reach our goal of reducing food-based emissions 33 percent by 2030. Diverting organic waste will also deprive the rodent population of food, bringing us closer to victory in the War on Rats. Together, we will forge a path to a sustainable, zero waste, and rat-free future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCurbside composting is officially available all over New York City. This is a pivotal step forward in the fight against climate change and also towards the future of our city,\u201d said\u00a0New York City Councilmember Shaun Abreu.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more people participate, the less money we\u2019ll waste sending food scraps to rot in landfills as far as South Carolina and Ohio. Best of all, we can put more compost right back into our community gardens, parks, and tree beds to protect and grow our green spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams and New York city department of sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced the completion of the roll-out of automatic, guaranteed, free, simple, weekly collection of compostable material\u00a0to every New Yorker across the five boroughs. When trucks left DSNY garages serving the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan just after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31,1378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news","category-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34666,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34665\/revisions\/34666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}