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NYC takes Bold Steps

July 7, 2015

New York City offers some surprising insights to materials management.

In April, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced a “Zero Waste” plan as part of his One New York program, the blueprint for long-term city infrastructure and environmental planning. The zero waste proposal calls for the city to reduce solid waste by 90 percent by 2030. Under the plan, NYC will stop sending its garbage to out-of-state landfills, which has been the practice since the closure of the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in 2001. To reach this goal, the city will promote source reduction and expand its existing recycling and composting efforts.  

This is a bold announcement for the mayor of a city with 8.5 million people, each of whom generates an average of 15 pounds of garbage per week. Moreover, New York City’s recycling rate currently stands at just 15 percent, less than half the national average of 34 percent.

“The whole system was built on a bankrupt idea—that you produce a huge amount of waste and you go send it to a landfill in another state. That is ludicrous. The whole notion of a society based on constantly increasing waste and then putting it into a truck or a barge or a train and sending it somewhere else—you dig a big hole in the ground, you put the waste in the ground—that is outrageous and is outdated, and we’re not going to be party to it,” Mr. de Blasio stated.

As noted in a previous blog--Community-Based Food Scrap Composting—the city presents a viable and scalable model for food scrap composting that can be practiced virtually anywhere. The city now plans to expand its composting program from the current 100,000 households to every home in the city by 2018. Realistically, I’m skeptical about their ability to reach this goal, given the need for siting new compost or anaerobic digestion operations to process all of the pending food scraps planned for diversion. But, at least they are establishing goals and making some real programmatic strides while much of the nation lags behind in making positive steps toward food scrap diversion.

As of July 1, single-use expanded polystyrene (EPS) products including cups, bowls, plates, takeout containers and trays and packing peanuts can no longer be possessed, sold, or offered in the city. Companies have six months to comply or face a fine. Given our society’s continued love of polystyrene, this is indeed a major step toward waste reduction and sets a model for other cities as they strive to move toward food scrap composting. Americans alone throw away 25 billion polystyrene coffee cups each year, not to mention the polystyrene take out containers, trays, etc. we so readily consume and toss. Eliminating EPS from restaurants and other food generator establishments will help when it comes to setting up post-consumer food scrap collection since most composters can accept paper products as well.

(Note: The chemical process that turns polystyrene beads into EPS makes it nearly impossible to turn a polystyrene plate into another polystyrene cup or take-out box. Once you’ve puffed a bunch of air into the PS beads and pour it into molds to make Styrofoam™ cups, the resulting cups cannot be recollapsed to form beads again. So, virgin polystyrene beads are needed to manufacture more EPS. Not to mention the nightmare of trying to collect the food-laden PS disposables.)

So, another good move on the part of NYC. Although a coalition of restaurant and manufacturing businesses--the Restaurant Action Alliance NYC—has filed a lawsuit to try and block the ban. Stay tuned…

NYC_recyclesGrowNYC promotes reuse and recycling through numerous drop-off collection events around the city. Textiles can be dropped off weekly at Greenmarket Farmers Markets.  Stop 'N' Swap® reuse events are offered regularly around the city.

Kudos to NYC for their zero waste goals and efforts at reducing waste. And, more importantly, taking a stand for the environment!

NYC_Stop and Swap logo

By Athena Lee Bradley

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