The New York City Council voted on July 1 to require every business that generates food or yard waste to separate it for composting, according to a Department of Sanitation press release. The move expands a requirement that has applied to all city residents for years but had covered only some businesses under rules the agency described as “confusing and outdated.”
The bill, Intro 31, authorizes DSNY to extend what the agency calls the nation’s largest mandatory curbside composting program to all commercial properties that produce organic waste. The previous rules were unclear about which businesses had to comply and which were exempt. DSNY cited that confusion as a reason for the change.
The switch may also save businesses money. Under New York City’s Commercial Waste Zone program, businesses pay less for composting collection than for regular trash pickup. Businesses sending food waste to garbage collection could pay less by composting instead.
Private carters operating under the Commercial Waste Zone will be required, under the new law, to give the establishments they serve information about donating excess edible food rather than throwing it away.
Intro 31 “marks a critical step toward reducing the amount of food waste and other compostable material sent to landfills,” DSNY Commissioner Gregory Anderson said in the press release. “All residents are required to compost as part of the nation’s largest mandatory curbside composting program. This bill allows DSNY to expand that universal requirement to all businesses that generate food and yard waste. With the passage of this bill, we will turn more New York City food waste into finished compost or renewable energy, rather than shipping it to landfills hundreds of miles away.”
The Council passed Intro 31 alongside a second sanitation bill on the same day. Intro 92 reverses a 2011 law that had prohibited DSNY from placing stickers on vehicles blocking street cleaning routes, restoring an enforcement tool the agency had used before that ban. Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer, who voted for the original 2011 prohibition, was the lead sponsor of the repeal.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
