New York City mayor Bloomberg vows to double recycling rates by 2017
The 'recycling-challenged' city is going to make some serious changes in the next five years, including compost pick-up.
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I would like to purpose a green waste to energy project with the pre-sorted msw that's left after recycling is done. Our systems are proven technology and in operation today thru out the world. One of our systems is in operation and powering a university right next door to campus buildings. If anyone is interested in developing this project in New York with our group, kindly contact me.
Misinformation continues! Ms. Vartan says:
Large plastic jugs for milk and detergent are accepted, but not plastic food containers, smaller drink bottles, etc
Reality Check: All plastic bottles and jugs, including milke and detergent and also importantly soda and water, of all sizes are accepted.
Other rigid containers are not presently accepted.
Learn the facts at www.nyc.gov/nycwasteless
or call.... More
The first paragraph of your piece still says that there is no plastic recycling in NYC.
Your personal experience aside, it is an empirical fact that tens of thousands of tons of bottle/jug plastic are collected from New York City residents who recycle, and are indeed recycled, annually. Learn about the firm that does this, Sims Recycling, .... More
Please note that I've amended the sentence which many of you found issue with and which was, technically incorrect. I do stand by my point that since I've yet to live in, stay or visit an NYC apartment building in Brooklyn, Queens, or Manhattan that recycles plastic, I can suppose that except for those NYC residents who are both diligent about recycling, and personally put their recyclables on the curb themselves, that most NYC residents don't recycle plastics of any kind. Anecdotal, this.... More
A couple of things:
Ms. Vartan says she's not writing from the perspective of an environmentalist, but her blog is the perspective of an eco-fashionista and world traveler who blogs on sustainable style and living. She's not an environmentalist?
Ms. Vartan says she's just a humble regular ol' NYer, who is confused, but her blog was picked up and posted, along with a nice photo of Bloomberg, on Forbes Eco-Nomics Blog. With those credentials, and that reach into the boardrooms.... More
Huh? No recycling of plastic? No one ever told me that, so I've been putting plastic containers, i.e. plastic detergent bottles, plastic milk cartons (and the paper/plastic mixed ones, too) into the blue recycling pail as always. When did the "NO PLASTIC RECYCLING" policy go into effect? We never received any pamphlet on this from the Sanitation Dept. In fact the latest hand-out from them shows what types of plastic are acceptable to put into the recycling pail. If the city gov't. intends.... More
Paul Corell is correct. All NYC apartment buildings are REQUIRED BY LAW to collect plastics for recycling.
The writer of this blog surprisingly refuses to hear what the far more knowledgable eco-activists commenting here are reporting.
She says that none of the residential buildings she visits collect plastics for recycling. I doubt that that's true, but if it is they are breaking the law and should be reported.
By the way, before the billionaire Bloomberg (with an "e").... More
They don't want you to stop recycling plastic. Your confusion is caused by this irresponsible blogger - Ms. Vartan. Keep doing what you are doing, and thank you for doing it!
I'm really sorry that you seem to think I'm trying to misinform people here. I wrote what I did because I've literally never seen a plastic container recycled anywhere in the city at a home or business. I think that regulations are great, but if they are so confusing and limited that nobody is following them, they are ineffective and bordering on pointless. And if I'm confused........how do you think most New Yorkers figure this stuff out? And what does that say about the plastics recycling.... More
I have advocated for a stronger recycling program (and more attention to reUSE) for about 10 years now when Mayor BloombErg was paying little attention. However, there is even public space recycling for plastics, metal and glass in increasingly more places (Union Square, City Hall Park, Cadman Plaza in Bklyn, just two I can think of) - something we all advocated for in the Zero Waste Coalition (which Mitchel Cohen mentioned, recommendations Mayor Bloomberg ignored back then). Washington Square.... More
Yes, a SMALL percentage of plastics are recycled - milk jugs (forgot about these because it's been years since I've even seen them for sale anywhere but the suburbs) and plastic liter soda bottles (also don't know anyone who uses these). But that is such a pathetically small part of the plastics recycled that it is an effective rate of nothing. Honestly, because of this limited collection for plastics, all the buildings that I frequent in NYC (office and residential) don't even bother with it..... More
I live in the Bronx (definitely NOT the suburbs) and frequent Manhattan. (Lived in Manhattan for 11 years.) Enter ANY supermarket or deli and look around and you will SEE PLENTY of soda, juice & milk in plastic containers. You have now
enterred the realm of RIDICULOUS !!! and hold absolutely NO CREDIBILTY!!!
As for the people you know who don't bother to recycle plastics because you think it too insignificant..........you are part of the PROBLEM. .
Ms. Vartan's responses continue to show a shocking lack of basic knowledge about the issue. Mayor Bloomberg's proposal is not to expand the city's recycling program to accept any material made of plastic, it is to expand it to accept rigid plastic containers other than bottles and jugs, which have, as many posters have pointed out, been accepted in the city's recycling program since the late 1980's.
The City, to its credit, has published detailed information on the quantities of.... More
I'm very confused. It sounds like Starre Vartan lives in NYC (Bloomberg is BloomBERG not BloomBURG) which makes this even more surprising. I know few serious environmentalists who look closely at the mayor and his programs who speak highly of him. However, the statement that NYC does not recycle plastics AT ALL, now being reworked to say by Ms. Vartan that she meant it's pitifully small recycling should be corrected. I have to agree with many of the other commenters on some of the responses of.... More
Ms. Swan is correct, and the author of the original piece is woefully uneducated about the facts.
Just want to mention there are "facts" and then there is reality, and in a city like NYC, reality wins. It doesn't much matter if a tiny percentage of plastics are able to be recycled if 95% of them are not. As an ardent recycler I have seen the reality of plastics recycling in NYC and it's just not happening currently, because of the limited, specific and confusing types of plastic accepted. Literally nobody I know recycles any plastic - this includes people in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan..... More
Your so called "facts" will probably come as a surprise to the processor that receives and markets tens of thousands of tons of recycled HDPE and PET bottles each year in New York City, deriving significant profits that offset the costs of collecting recycling sorting paper, metal, and glass out of the mix. If you are basing your arguments on your own personal experience, I can only assume that you are refuting published data by the City, supported by a wealth of literature in peer reviewed.... More
From the blogger's responses to comments, it is clear that she is not interested in the truth -- seems to me her ego is too invested to accept constructive criticism. Any serious writer needs to be able to review reader input & accept when he/she has made a mistake. Ms. Vartan has been given good information by commentors, but rejects it based upon her personal experience --- experience that includes ignoring the current plastic recycling guidelines of current law (refer to see her.... More
A friend of mine now on the West Coast writes:
Compost is heavy, so adding it will certainly "double" what's collected. I've seen a number of cities and communities word things that way.
Extending the plastics beyond #1 PETE and #2 HDPE usually means a materials recycling facility is set up to handle them, but not necessarily that they're actually going to be recycled. There is little that can be done with anything but #1 and #2,
so it becomes landfill by other means (but its.... More
Thanks for the great comments; as you can probably tell by the opening paragraph of this piece, I'm pretty critical of the Bloomburg administration. But that we will have plastics recycling in NYC (even if it's been a pathetically long time coming) is important, and worth supporting. Just because one writes a supportive piece about Bloomburg's new recycling program, one that's both needed and wanted, doesn't mean the writer supports all of what the Mayor does (or doesn't do). I agree that.... More
Thank you for your reply. I would like to admit that I did digress in my previous comment by referring to Bloomberg's other policies. I did not do so intending to imply that you support them. My concerns are that some people may hail Bloomberg as a hero, when he is NOT. I respect the MNN & appreciate your efforts. However your article refers to NYC's suspension of recycling (for 2 years),
but fails to inform readers that it was Bloomberg who did this. Your post also states that.... More
I think you missed Cathryn Swan's post, where she wrote that NYC DOES have plastics recycling today; please read it carefully.
Thanx.
Mitchel
Thank you, all three posters below. We started Recycle This! in 2002 in direct response to Mayor Bloomberg's extremely shortsighted and anti-environmental cancellation of recycling, which undermined years of hard work letting people know how and where to recycle. Our first action 10 years ago was "A Billion Bottles for Bloomberg", where we surrounded City Hall with plastic bottles clipped to clothes-lines.
Even today, the City's entire waste management programs are deeply flawed. There.... More
As stated by the previous commentors, NYC law requires plastics to be recycled and Bloomberg was the one who stopped & reinstated the program. This is another one of egomaniacal Bloomberg's Public Relation campaigns twisting the truth. Here in the Bronx, we would LOVE to have public garbage cans on our corners, (and some of us have been requesting them, only to be denied), while the mayor beautifies Manhattan as his "showpiece".
The senior citizens in the Bronx would also LOVE to have.... More
You are incorrect. NYC has been recycling plastic bottles & jugs since 1986. It's what the blue containers are for.
Bloomberg famously did away with glass and plastics recycling for around 2 years in 2002 because he said it "cost too much." The result of this was that paper recycling - which continued to be picked up and was actually making money - took a big hit because people were so confused. Years of education around recycling were all undone by Bloomberg's actions. That is what was costly. Now, he's saying it's a great idea not for the environment but because it creates jobs. Yikes.
I don't.... More
