De Blasio, Garcia deserve kudos for waste zone plan

When I was commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, we did not know nearly enough about what was happening with the city’s commercial waste – the trash and recyclables managed by private sanitation companies. We spent years and thousands of hours designing and refining the department’s truck routes to reduce mileage and air emissions from our fleet of diesels, and we always suspected that we could do the same for the private carters; but we had no control over their operations. We also knew we were missing a great deal of the commercial recycling opportunities. If the city could set minimum standards for these private operators – pollution standards, recycling requirements, working and safety conditions – we knew we could wrestle these problems to the ground.

But we didn’t have a direct and politically viable way to get there. We had enough to do with bringing recycling to every neighborhood and bringing women into the city’s uniformed labor force. Private carting looked like a bigger mess than we had time for. I always knew we were missing a big part of the picture – roughly half of the waste produced in this city – but it didn’t seem like the body politic saw this as a fight it was eager for.

The times are a-changin’. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia took a brave step this month with their new “waste zone” plan to rationalize the private sector system. I am glad they had the courage to tackle the problem of how to raise standards in this industry.

The mayor’s study of private sanitation shows that we can attack both air pollution impacts and low recycling rates, and probably do it for less money, resulting in better rates for New York City businesses. The Department of Sanitation study looked at commercial waste zone or franchise systems in Los Angeles, Seattle and San Jose, and found positive signs for small businesses in a competitive zone system. In Seattle, rates for small businesses dropped by 8 percent under a waste zone system. Most San Jose small businesses saw lower rates as well. The study and others nationally have found that the industry gains jobs even while cutting costs, because more of the industry’s monies are spent on labor and equipment for recycling rather than for diesel fuel and truck mileage costs.

Commissioner Garcia projects that moving to the waste zone system will reduce the miles that private sanitation trucks travel by more than two-thirds – from the current 23.1 million truck miles down to 7.4 million per year. Virtually all New York City neighborhoods would see less truck traffic, with Manhattan and some Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods realizing the biggest traffic reductions.

A zone system could require haulers to meet standards and best practices as conditions of getting and keeping these very valuable exclusive contracts for sections of the city. In our city, these standards should include audited recycling rates and route consolidation. Additional standards could include similar hot-button issues for our communities, such as the amount of trash left on sidewalks and the time between pickups. The city can require the latest and cleanest engines, the safest trucks. Since the right to all trash business in any zone would be so valuable, it would provide a real incentive to see that these standards are met.

It is very encouraging to see the commissioner and the city tackling these longstanding issues, thought to be almost insoluble and politically toxic for so many years. The waste zone plan should lead to significant improvements in trash collection, recycling rates, noise, pollution and quality of life in our densest neighborhoods. This plan has been needed for a long time and is very welcome.

Brendan Sexton served as New York City’s sanitation commissioner from 1986 to 1990. He is the president and founder of The Sexton Company.