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).
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| 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.
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| Toronto's Green Bin Program |
What are some other effective ways to reduce waste production?
By Trevor S.
