In an ambitious and dramatic move to boost a dismal recycling rate, the Bloomberg Administration intends for the first time to collect and compost food waste starting with a pilot program on Staten Island.
Officials said Mayor Bloomberg will announce the initiative tomorrow in his 12th and final State of the City address at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
If the program for single-family homes in the smallest borough works, it'll be expanded citywide -- diverting about 20 percent of the garbage from the waste stream of the nation's largest metropolis. Other cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, already turn leftovers into fertilizer.
"The administration seems to recognize it needs to polish up its record on recycling to keep up an overall impressive record on environmental and sustainable issues," said Eric Goldstein, senior attorney of the National Resources Defense Council.
"Recycling has been the soft spot....This can mark a real turning point in returning New York to a leadership role."
The city's recycling rate hovers around 15 percent, less than half the national average. When Bloomberg took office in 2002, it was 19 percent.
The mayor has pledged to double the recycling rate by 2017, which Goldstein said would not only save the environment but also save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. The city spends more than $300 million to ship 10,800 tons of trash each day to landfills. The cost goes up almost every year.
Officials on Staten Island -- many of whom took part in the fight to shut the enormous Fresh Kills landfill during the Giuliani Administration -- reacted warily.
"I think most people are not going to like it," predicted Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro. "I doubt if it's going to be successful."
As someone with experience in the recycling business, Molinari said he's worried that bins for food scraps will quickly vanish after the first collection.
"The DS (Department of Sanitation) truck comes, takes off the cover and dumps the garbage. That's the end of the pail and the end of the cover," he said.
City officials said the administration would supply rigid containers with locked tops that would be collected separately, probably starting in the spring.
"It'll be foolproof," vowed one official.
City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.) said he was concerned that his constituents would start getting fined if they mistakenly mix organic and regular garbage.
But officials offered reassurances on that front as well, saying there would be no fines during the pilot period.
To round out his recycling package, the mayor confirmed the worst fear of take-out joints -- he's going to ask the City Council to make New York the first major East Coast city to ban Styrofoam.
An estimated 20,000 tons of the nearly-indestructible stuff enters the waste stream each year.
Finally, the mayor wants to amend the Building Code so that 20 percent of the spaces in all new parking garages are wired for electric vehicles, creating an estimated 10,00 such spots in seven years. The city also plans to set up two sites for 30-minute electric car charge-ups, one in Seward Park for the public and another at Con Ed headquarters on Irving Place for taxi fleets.
Bloomberg's announcement will come on a propitious day, both Valentine's Day and his 71st birthday.
