Not Separating Organic Waste Is About to Cost a Fine. Are New Yorkers Ready?
Come April 1st, all residential buildings in New York City will be subject to fines if they don’t separate organic waste according to New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) rules.
New York City rolled out the nation’s largest organic waste collection program last October in line with the 2023 local “Zero Waste Act.” The goal: Shrinking our carbon footprint and reducing the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend annually shipping organic waste to distant landfills or incinerators.
Unlike opt-in collection programs piloted on and off over the years, the Zero Waste Act makes organics separation at residences mandatory in all five boroughs. This means buildings are required to provide tenants with designated organic waste bins and set the bins out for collection on recycling days.
Up to now, the program has been in a “warning” period to allow for adoption. But participation isn’t going well so far, highlighting a need for more investment in outreach and programming and greater clarity about how the law will be enforced.
Five months after the rollout, and despite many neighborhoods having had curbside organics pick-up previously, many buildings still don’t have or use organic waste bins. I know this firsthand. A recent email exchange with my building’s management in Brooklyn revealed that they didn’t know anything about the separation requirement. The lack of participation is reflected in a dismal residential organic capture rate of less than five percent. Of what is collected, much may be attributable to yard waste, not the city’s 1.2 billion pounds of annual food waste.
In theory, this is where fines come in. Starting April 1st, they can be levied on buildings for not separating waste and for improper implementation (e.g. wrong set out time, unsanitary bin conditions, or wrong bin type). Buildings with up to eight units face a $25 fine for first offenses, followed by $50 and then $100 for subsequent violations in a 12-month period. For larger buildings fines are $100 to $300.
Unfortunately, buildings that don’t yet have bins and processes in place with staff and resident buy-in are unlikely to comply quickly. Many building supers also report that they don’t have the physical space or time to incorporate organic separation. And even when buildings do have bins, past pilots show that participation is not guaranteed and in many cases has declined over time.
Then there is the problem of contaminants like plastics and other non-organics ending up in organics bins, something I have witnessed often in my neighborhood. This can lead to lower-quality end products (e.g. industrial compost), re-diversion of waste to landfills, and even shutdowns of industrial composting systems.
Nor is it clear how, fines notwithstanding, DSNY plans to enforce organics separation. For example, garbage bags will be inspected for organic waste, but how consistently will DSNY actually issue fines when organics are discovered? And are they steep enough to encourage compliance? Will enforcement efforts be equitable, or impact certain neighborhoods more heavily than others? And who is ultimately responsible for compliance: buildings or residents? While fines cannot be passed on to residents directly, management companies could calculate fines into rent, placing residents at the receiving end of noncompliance penalties.
The sad fact is that under a similar fines schedule, the City’s paper, metal, and plastics recycling has taken decades to reach even today's low and now stagnating capture rates. So, organics separation is facing an uphill climb.
At a City Council hearing last fall, DSNY Commissioner Joshua Goodman explained that informative mailers and a $500,000 EPA grant-funded door-to-door outreach campaign have been targeted at residents. “We really wanted to empower residents to have the information they needed to say to their building management, ‘I know that you must comply with this, it’s the law,’” Goodman said.
To its credit, DSNY also has invested $20.3 million to make the program work, including for 320 new staff and 158 trucks, not to mention contracts for organics transfer and processing. But to meet the Zero Waste Act’s goals, including the requirement to maximize composting, more of the budget should go towards education, local processing, and system design.
Community composters, who provide hands-on education through hyper-local and accessible organics collection, processing, and compost distribution, are seeking $12 million in the next City budget (starting July 1st) to expand services across the city. Community composting is a bargain for promoting organics separation, as the City Council understood when it restored funding last year after community composting was cut by DSNY. Making organic separation fun and community-based gets people passionate and builds habits while supporting local jobs. While widespread organics collection ramps up, it also helps ensure access to composting options in every neighborhood.
Policy and building design involving the public would also help increase buy-in and compliance. Clare Miflin, executive director of the Center for Zero Waste Design, and others have argued that the City needs to work with local communities to develop incentives, systems, and integration of organic separation through better design.
In addition, here are steps New Yorkers can take now.
Email your management company or landlord with the link to the DSNY rules page and request that they comply and communicate the program to tenants. If your building isn’t compliant with the organic separation law yet, inform management if you aren’t contributing to fines. If you own a building or home, contact DSNY for support. Then, once you get a bin, use it!
Find and support a local community composting group. This ensures that your organic waste makes it into high-quality compost for local use.
Let your City Council member know what you need to make organics recycling work for you.
Talk to your neighbors about the above steps. The more people know about organics separation, compost locally, and speak up for a system that works for everyone, the closer we will be to a successful organic program in the city.
Audrey Jenkins is a research assistant at the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. Audrey holds a Master’s in Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and is pursuing her doctorate in Public and Urban Policy at The New School with a focus on infrastructures of ecological democracy.
Photo by: Audrey Jenkins