Flashback: Sanitation Appointee on Trash, Energy

Before Kathryn Garcia was appointed New York City sanitation commissioner this weekend, she served as chief operating officer at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection—a role she held when she participated in a City & State energy conference last fall.

During the panel discussion, she shared some lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy (at the 59:50 mark).

“There are some things that you need to do right now because the storms aren’t going to wait for us to figure it all out,” she said, “and we need to be better protected and better prepared.”

She also touted a variety of innovative conservation and efficiency initiatives at DEP (20:53), including some that directly relate to her new role at the Department of Sanitation.

“We are hoping that the Public Service Commission approves our sale of digestor gas to National Grid,” she said. “We are taking food waste to see if we can produce more digestor gas, which is basically methane.”

She also discussed open landfill spaces in the city that could be used for solar power (48:50). “That continues to be a focus of the organization: How can we look at the landfills that have been recently capped and think of them as a resource rather than as a drain?”