New York City's Waste Management Practices: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Under the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg, New York City is creating a state of the art facility that will use the “cleanest and latest” technology to dispose of approximately 450 tons of trash per day. If successful, the program’s capacity will be doubled. According to Bloomberg, the plant must be in New York City or no farther than 80 miles away to reduce its environmental impact. The project is part of New York City’s efforts to reduce reliance on landfills as the city currently produces 10,000 tons of waste daily.

New York also has a program called “re-fashioNYC”, a partnership between the City of New York and Housing Works. The program gives buildings with 10 or more units donation bins which are collected by the city within 5 days of placing a request. In addition, individuals can receive a tax receipt for their donation. This powerful incentive encourages re-using, reducing the amount of waste in the city. The program collects an array of items including fabric/material, clothing, towels, linens, curtains, clean rags, shoes, and accessories (belts and handbags).  

re-fashioNYC Collection Bin

While NYC’s waste-to-energy proposal is innovative, the city should investigate long-term solutions to reduce waste. If garbage collection costs follow a progressive model (low fee for a base amount of garbage and an increasingly large fee for each additional bag of garbage), households will produce less waste and recycle more often. New York City’s recycling rate of 15 percent is derisory compared to the average recycling rate of 39 percent among countries in the European Union. In fact, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands have recycling rates of over 60 percent. 

New York City should look into offering a composting collection program. Toronto’s green bin program led to 44 percent waste diversion in 2008.

Toronto's Green Bin Program

What are some other effective ways to reduce waste production?

By Trevor S.