NYC announces return of curbside composting, expansions of other waste programs

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced April 22 that the city will resume its curbside composting program, which had been put on hold due to the budgetary impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the city, the program will be available to the 3.5 million New Yorkers who previously had curbside collection service. Residents and building operators will be able to voluntarily opt-in to the program to receive free weekly curbside composting service. Enrollment will launch in August, with collection services set to begin in October and expand as more buildings opt in.

Beyond the curbside collection program, the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) announced expansion of community composting, reuse and hazardous waste disposal programs.

“Today is Earth Day, but New York City’s commitment to sustainability is year-round,” de Blasio says. “No other municipality ran a compost program like ours, and this new citywide program will advance the cause of environmental justice in all five boroughs.”

“When people think about the work of the Department of Sanitation, all too often they think it’s our job just to make trash disappear. But we are a sustainability organization—one of the largest municipal resource recovery operations in the world,” DSNY Commissioner Edward Grayson says. “I want to thank Mayor de Blasio for his commitment to this mission, and I’m excited to see brown bins back on the streets.”

In addition to the relaunch of voluntary curbside composting, the city’s Food Scrap Drop-Off program will be significantly expanded from over 100 community-based sites at present to more than 200 this fall. From September 2020 through February of this year, many food scrap drop-off programs have broken participation records. Collectively, 1.3 million pounds of material have been collected and diverted during this period.

According to DSNY, growth of this program will be achieved via a restoration of GrowNYC’s Greenmarket Composting program funding and an expansion of NYC Compost Project funding to support community-based drop-offs, composting and education. In addition, the program will include a first-of-its-kind pilot using “smart bins,” in which New Yorkers use an app to access public food scrap drop-off bins, thus preventing cross-contamination and misuse.

As part of DSNY’s announcement, the city noted that its School Curbside Composting service will also return in the 2021-22 school year. Nearly 1,000 schools that had service prior to COVID-19 will resume curbside composting.

Beyond composting, the city announced the expansion or restoration of several other sustainability programs. SAFE Disposal Events, which help collect solvents, automotive, flammables, and electronics products as well as other regulated waste, will expand from two per borough each year—a total of 10—to nearly 60 per year, one for each community district. According to the DSNY, “this six-fold expansion means fewer dangerous chemicals and products on our streets, in our waterways, or in landfills.”

Special Waste Drop-off locations, sites around the city where residents can drop off harmful materials that do not belong in household trash, will also be reopening starting in this July. These sites have been closed since March 2020.

Finally, DSNY will begin offering Reuse Swap Events across the city to keep usable items out of landfills and help them find interested parties who can reuse them.