This week, New York City’s recycling program passes an historic milestone.

As of October 2nd, every household in Brooklyn should easily be able to recycle food scraps and yard waste for weekly curbside collection, right along with their recyclable plastics, metals, glass containers, and paper.

The city’s most populous borough now joins Queens, where regular curbside organic waste collection began in March – meaning that what Mayor Eric Adams has called the nation’s biggest program of its kind for the first time covers a majority of New York City’s roughly eight million residents.

Under Local Law 85 of 2023, the new curbside organics program will continue to expand to every borough by next March. (Designated drop-off sites and the City’s “Smart Bins” will continue to be available for depositing organic waste, too.) This gives it huge potential to shrink greenhouse gas emissions and save money by reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars we currently spend exporting waste to distant landfills and incinerators.

Finally achieving citywide curbside organic collection will finish the long, disappointing saga of stops and starts that began when Mayor Michael Bloomberg set it as a goal in his final State of City address in 2013. And it’s badly needed. As the recently released 2023 Mayor’s Management Report shows, the percentage of waste New York City sends to landfills and incinerators has actually increased since 2019.

To maximize the benefits of the new program, government and the private sector need to work in concert. Their decisions can ensure that the organics recycling program reaches its potential to address climate change, advance environmental justice, and create green jobs. To get there we need to focus on these three goals:

First, develop local compost sites.

A large portion of the separated household waste currently collected by the City is mixed with wastewater and anaerobically digested at the City’s huge Newtown Creek treatment plant (pictured below).

That’s much better than landfilling or incinerating it. But it’s also less beneficial than composting waste, which avoids methane leaks and results in a rich soil fertilizer that can be used in farms, parks, and gardens. The status quo also involves the risks associated with sanitation truck traffic in already-overburdened “environmental justice” communities where private transfer stations and wastewater treatment plants accepting organic waste are sited.

Local Law 85 requires the City to develop a plan to maximize composting as part of the next 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan. Investing in mid-size local composting facilities could create good local jobs in sustainable waste management, and reduce trucks and pollution in over-burdened communities.

While siting in a dense city is always a challenge, the City has several immediate options to locate and local composting facilities. That includes Rikers Island. The City’s Renewable Rikers Act of 2021 mandates the transfer of unused land from the Department of Correction to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which has a big environmental sustainability portfolio. It also could include public parks, which are both generators of compostable material and end users of finished compost.

Second, ensure that businesses and private waste haulers are following the same food waste recycling rules.

With the expansion of residential curbside recycling, the City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) needs to ensure that the Big Apple’s hundreds of thousands of businesses, and the private sanitation companies that collect their waste, are implementing clear, consistent recycling practices for their employees and customers. While current rules require many grocery stores and restaurants to source-separate and recycle organic waste, enforcement is rare, the overall number of recycling violations issued by DSNY has declined, and it’s common to see stores and restaurants simply disposing of food scraps and other recyclables in black bags or dumpsters.

The commercial waste zones system mandated by Local Law 199 of 2019 is finally being implemented after years of delay. It’s designed to make the commercial waste system far more efficient, transparent, safe, and accountable to environmental goals. As the City negotiates contracts with private haulers selected for each zone, it should ensure that comprehensive organic waste recycling services are available to all food waste-generating businesses, and that these businesses receive discounts for properly source-separating organics and reducing disposed waste. Business employees and customers alike also should be able to follow clear and simple recycling practices that are as consistent as possible with recycling practices mandated for residential recycling.

Third, prioritize food waste prevention and donation alongside composting.

While composting is critical, much of what Americans discard is edible food. We can save money, feed food-insecure New Yorkers, and reduce climate emissions by teaching businesses and households to reduce waste and by improving the infrastructure and incentives for donation of unsold food.

In concert with public education around curbside organics recycling, the City and commercial waste haulers alike should invest in rapid expansion of food donation and food rescue services, so that retail stores, restaurants, and individuals can easily donate unsold, unused, and expiring food products in every community, and sharply reduce tonnages of disposed food.

New York City’s huge production of waste is estimated to cause 12 percent of statewide greenhouse gas emissions – almost as much as electricity generation. The State’s Climate Action Council has determined that ending landfilling and incineration of organic food and yard waste is the single most important policy we can implement to reduce waste emissions.

Getting eight million people to adopt new recycling behavior at home and at work is a huge undertaking. But positive change is infectious, and New Yorkers have a visceral connection with our waste: it's piled up everywhere; it smells; it blocks our sidewalks and streets; and it’s often obvious how much of it could be avoided with simple, common-sense policy changes.

Our new organics law passed with overwhelming support in the City Council, after years of advocacy from community members weary of seeing recycling programs sacrificed on the budget chopping block. With the mandatory program’s debut in Brooklyn, our elected officials should double down on composting and waste prevention to enhance New York City’s role as a global climate leader.

Justin Wood is director of policy for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a founding member of the Transform Don’t Trash Coalition focused on reforming solid waste policy and promoting waste reduction and recycling in New York.

Photo by: Bruce Cory (opening image); siny.org (Newtown Creek treatment plant).

As Organic Recycling Grows, Let’s Maximize Its Benefits for Everyone