Environment Roundtable: Kathryn Garcia

Q: How will the city address the “borough equity” waste removal issue going forward?

KG: The Department of Sanitation is committed to providing the same prompt, courteous and efficient service in all five boroughs, including collection, cleaning and snow removal. We will improve our outreach and recruiting to traditionally underrepresented waste-sheds groups, including women, to make sure that our department better represents the city we serve. We are also committed to the idea that waste generated in one borough should not be a burden on another. The Solid Waste Management Plan embodies this principle by reducing the impacts of the city’s waste management system on historically overburdened neighborhoods and by establishing specific transfer stations for residential waste-sheds in every borough.

Q: The previous administration established some pilot composting programs. Are there plans to further expand these programs?

KG: Food waste and other organic materials make up about a third of the residential waste stream, and we spend millions of dollars every year to send it to out-of-state landfills. We are committed to exploring ways to divert organics from the solid waste stream in a cost-effective and sustainable way. [On April 10] we announced an expansion of the curbside organics collection program to Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace and Park Slope in Brooklyn, and portions of Glendale, Middle Village and Maspeth in Queens. That’s in addition to existing pilot areas in Staten Island, Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn.

Q: How can New York City improve its recycling rate after a steady decline over the last decade?

KG: In some neighborhoods, New Yorkers are doing a great job at recycling. In others, we clearly have work to do to educate residents, building staff and property owners about the program and make sure that people have access to the right infrastructure and information. By recycling rigid plastics, expanding organics collection, and expanding our textile and electronics programs, we hope to see the recycling rate increase. But the recycling rate that we report does not capture everything that New Yorkers are doing. Over the last decade, the amount of waste going to landfills has decreased dramatically, even as the city’s population has increased.

Q: New York City spends over $300 million each year to export waste to landfills outside of the city. Is there a way to do this more cost-effectively?

KG: We are always looking for ways to do our job more cost-effectively. Frankly, trucking more than 10,000 tons of garbage each day to a landfill is an expensive proposition, and the best way to reduce costs is to reduce the amount of waste we generate and increase the amount we recycle. There is value in almost everything we throw out. The challenge is to identify the tools and processes to extract this value from the waste stream.