Groups urge more openness for NYC’s waste plans

Several trade groups representing waste generators have sent a letter to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio asking for more openness as the city formulates a plan for geographically zoned commercial waste collection. The groups were joined in signing the letter by one labor union a citizens’ advocacy group.

In the Jan. 18, 2018, letter, the eight signatory organizations “respectfully request that the planning process initiated by the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) to construct a system of geographic zones for the management of wastes generated by commercial businesses be halted, reconsidered and opened for public review and debate.”

According to the letter’s signatories, DSNY initiated the commercial zones planning process in August 2016 based on reports that “were not subject to public discussion prior to the administration’s determination to proceed.”

The eight organizations write that DSNY has worked with consultants who have charged the city some $8 million and has held closed-door meetings with a 30-person advisory board that “has been explicitly not allowed to discuss whether such a system makes any sense for the city,” according to the letter’s authors.

The signatories have called for the meetings to be open, starting with one scheduled for Monday, Jan. 22, 2018.

The letter writers say their concerns include that a zoned system “would lead to higher costs for most businesses, as they would lose the right to choose their service providers and the benefits of marketplace competition.”

Other options should be considered, write the groups, pointing to “commentaries and editorials in Los Angeles as it struggles to roll out a zone-based system that is similar to what is being considered by DSNY.” Since July 1, 2017, in Los Angeles, contend the signatories, “Prices for customers have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled, and service complaints number in the tens of thousands. Mayor Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council are now considering ways to roll back the zoned system, restore choice and competition and otherwise correct the excesses of [the Los Angeles] failure.”

The eight signatories to the letter are the Building Owners and Managers Association of New York, the Bodega Association of the United States, the New York State Restaurant Association, the Food Industry Association of New York, the New York City Hospitality Alliance, the National Supermarket Association, Recycling and General Industrial Laborers Local 108 and New Yorkers for Responsible Waste Management.