Latest news with #NewYorkCityDepartmentofSanitation
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Sanitation Foundation Launches Don't Do New York City Dirty Anti-Littering Campaign
New Movement Calls on New Yorkers to Show City Pride by Properly Disposing of Trash Foundation Invites New Yorkers to Interactive Activation at Cooper Square for Campaign Kick-Off PRESS KIT HERE(Visual Assets, Fact Sheet, Report, Leadership Bios, Credit Sheet) NEW YORK, May 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Sanitation Foundation – the official nonprofit partner of the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) – launched Don't Do New York City Dirty, a campaign aimed at turning New Yorkers' pride into action against littering. New research conducted by the Foundation revealed that while 83% of New Yorkers express pride in their city, nearly 40% admit to littering – a gap the campaign seeks to close by empowering everyone to keep their city clean. "The 'Trash Revolution' must include all New Yorkers, and that's what this campaign from the New York City Sanitation Foundation is all about — taking pride in our city and ending a culture where some people think it's ok to litter," said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. "We're proud to amplify this campaign to make sure that people in all five boroughs know we're not going to stand for littering, not now, not ever." "10,000 of New York's Strongest clean thousands of miles of City streets and handle 24 million pounds of trash each day, and we do it with pride. But in a city this size, we need all New Yorkers to do their part. This campaign supports our work by reminding every resident of their role in the cleanliness of the City, and that littering isn't just illegal, it's also true loser behavior," said Javier Lojan, Acting Commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation. The Don't Do New York City Dirty campaign, created by Arnold NY, is rolling out across the city's landscape – from TV and radio spots to movie theaters through National CineMedia (NCM), double-decker buses, signage on the sides of sanitation trucks, and more. The campaign's simple yet powerful message aims to become part of New York's cultural vocabulary, creating a lasting phrase that resonates with New Yorkers for years to come. The message extends across major social media platforms with targeted content designed to reach New Yorkers of all ages, with special emphasis on engaging younger generations through the channels they use most. In addition to private funding from the Sanitation Foundation, the City of New York will provide additional advertising placements for this campaign, beginning with millions of impressions on LinkNYC kiosks and posters on the sides of thousands of New York City Department of Sanitation collection trucks. Throughout the summer, the City will assess opportunities to provide additional space on Taxi TV, bus shelters, and beyond, in line with Mayor Adams' commitment to a clean, safe, livable City. The campaign comes to life through compelling videos directed by Nicholas Heller, a.k.a. New York Nico, forming the heart of this citywide initiative. These videos feature authentic and diverse New Yorkers, including the self-proclaimed "Mayor of Coney Island" and legendary rapper Nems and the Green Lady (Elizabeth Sweetheart), sharing their deep connection to the city and why keeping it clean matters. New York-based photographer Jeremy Cohen captured all of the campaign's print and out-of-home imagery. "Don't Do New York City Dirty marks a turning point in how we care for the greatest city in the world. This isn't just a campaign – it's the foundation of a decades-long commitment to creating a culture of cleanliness in New York," said Caryl Englander, Sanitation Foundation Board Chair. "We're building a movement where Don't Do New York City Dirty becomes as fundamentally New York as the skyline itself. The Sanitation Foundation is proud to lead this enduring effort that will transform how generations of New Yorkers relate to their City." "I may love a little trash talk, but I'd never trash this city," said iconic TV producer and long-time Sanitation Foundation supporter Andy Cohen. "As a dad raising two kids here, I want them to grow up proud of New York – and that means clean streets and respect for where we live." The campaign kicks off Thursday, May 15, at noon in Cooper Square with "The Dirty Truth," a free, one-of-a-kind public experience conceived and produced by Team Epiphany – a global, full-service marketing agency that takes a culture-first approach to engineering impactful campaigns. This immersive installation transforms everyday litter like takeout containers and coffee cups into provocative, larger-than-life sculptures that challenge perceptions and inspire action. Open through Saturday, May 17, the experience includes both educational elements highlighting the impact of littering and interactive components that demonstrate how "trashing your trash" creates visible change in our shared spaces. The Don't Do New York City Dirty movement is bolstered by a milestone study released today by the Sanitation Foundation in partnership with Dreyfus Advisors. The report captures the first comprehensive research examining New Yorkers' attitudes toward and behaviors around littering. Key findings from the Foundation's landmark study on littering behavior include: 83% of New Yorkers are proud of their city 8 in 10 New Yorkers think littering is a problem, yet nearly 40% admit to littering Only 29% of New Yorkers say they have never littered Amid the activation, The Sanitation Foundation will host a community cleanup on Friday, May 16 at Cooper Square to pick up litter in the surrounding East Village. New Yorkers can also join the movement through year-round Sanitation Foundation programs such as the Sports Cleanup Series, Community Stewards, and Adopt Your Spot NYC - an initiative empowering residents to care for specific locations especially dear to them. For more information on how to get involved, visit About the Sanitation FoundationThe Sanitation Foundation is the official non-profit partner of the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY). We support the work of DSNY to clean up the city and reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. Our work is designed to create ways for individuals, corporate partners, institutions, and community groups to participate in creating a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable NYC. For more information, visit About the New York City Department of SanitationThe Department of Sanitation (DSNY) keeps New York City clean, safe, and healthy by collecting, recycling, and disposing of waste, cleaning streets, attacking the scourge of illegal dumping, and clearing snow and ice. The Department operates 59 district garages and manages a fleet of more than 2,000 rear-loading collection trucks, 450 mechanical brooms, 705 salt spreaders, and several dozen bike lane operations machines. Under the Adams Administration, the Department is aggressively cleaning more parts of the City than ever before, including over 1,000 long-ignored areas spread across every neighborhood, as well as cleaning the highways and managing graffiti removal. CONTACT: sanitationfoundation@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Sanitation Foundation
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Smaller NYC trash bins available online from DSNY
Editor's Note: The above story originally aired on Nov. 12, 2024 NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) — In response to demand, the New York City Department of Sanitation has released smaller trash bins for sale on its official website. The new 25-gallon bins sell for $43.88 and can hold up to two 13-gallon garbage bags. The smaller bins abide by NYC trash rules that went into effect in November, which mandated all residents to put trash in containers with lids for pick-up. More Local News 'We are proud to be able to offer City residents with even more choices in finding the right waste bin to meet their individual or building's needs,' said Javier Lojan, Acting Sanitation Commissioner. DSNY originally released 35-gallon and 45-gallon official bins to help New Yorkers abide by the new trash rules. The new 25-gallon size comes in response to requests from residents and elected officials. More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State The smaller bins are expected to be a better fit for some smaller trash bin enclosures and easier to maneuver for residents in smaller households, officials from the department said. According to the DSNY more than 750,000 official trash bins have been ordered to date through the department's website. Properties with one to nine residential units must put out their trash for collection using garbage bins with secure lids that are up to 55-gallons in size. Any residents found in violation could face fines ranging from $50 – $200. Dominique Jack is a digital content producer from Brooklyn with more than five years of experience covering news. She joined PIX11 in 2024. More of her work can be found here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
New York City is making people compost — or pay up
Property owners and landlords in New York City can now be fined $25 or more if residents are found throwing a banana peel in the trash. As of April 1, all New Yorkers must separate organic waste — that includes food scraps, food-soiled paper (like empty pizza boxes), and leaf and yard waste — from the rest of their trash, similar to how metal, glass, paper, and plastic is set aside for recycling. This is how the city is encouraging — or indeed, mandating — participation in its curbside composting program, where food waste is collected weekly by the sanitation department, same as the trash and recycling. Mandatory curbside composting is still relatively new in New York City; the program only rolled out in all five boroughs late last year. The best use of food, of course, is to feed people. When it can't do that, composting is one tool to help reduce emissions from organic waste — the methane released as food decays in landfills is a major driver of global warming. As a whole, the United States wastes as much food as it did nearly 10 years ago, despite setting an ambitious goal to cut food waste in half. Getting New Yorkers onboard with composting will take time — and effort. When it comes to diverting food waste from landfills by composting it instead, New York lags far behind other large U.S. cities. The city recovered less than 5 percent of eligible households' organic waste in the 2024 fiscal year. The fines announced this month are designed to boost compliance; in the first week of April, the New York City Department of Sanitation, or DSNY, issued nearly 2,000 tickets for allegedly failing to separate organics. 'That is only half the story: We picked up 2.5 million pounds of compostable material last week,' said Vincent Gragnani, press secretary for DSNY, 'a 240 percent increase over the 737,000 pounds collected during the same week last year.' But critics say the city should focus more on educating residents on the benefits of composting. 'My concern is that, instead of doing outreach, we're focusing on fear-mongering,' said Lou Reyes, a local composting advocate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reyes and his partner started a volunteer-run effort in Astoria, Queens, to collect and compost neighborhood food waste. He described the city's recovery rate of organic waste prior to the rollout of fines as 'pretty shameful.' The lackluster participation in the city's composting program may be a function of time — Seattle, for example, banned organics in the trash 10 years ago. In San Francisco, composting has been mandatory since 2009. Still, experts say boosting food waste collection in New York, a metropolis with more than 8 million people, will also take dedicated education and outreach. 'I would say our biggest tool that the department uses is education,' said Joseph Piasecki, the public affairs and policy coordinator for San Francisco's environmental department. He mentioned that the city's organics hauler works to notify residents and businesses of potential mix-ups before fining them. 'They will reach out, our department will reach out, we will call, we'll put boots on the ground to go, like physically go, there, and be like, How can we help you be successful?' said Piasecki. At a preliminary budget hearing last month, DSNY said it has sent out citywide mailers about the composting fines; the department is also meeting with every community board and holding information sessions for residents and property managers to better educate the public about the program. And Piasecki stressed that San Francisco's composting program should not serve as a direct comparison for New York's. About 800,000 people live in San Francisco, roughly a tenth of the population of New York City. It also covers a much smaller geographic area: about 50 square miles compared to just over 300. A better comparison might be Los Angeles, a city of more than 3 million that just rolled out a mandatory curbside composting program two years ago. But adding to DSNY's composting woes is that the agency has failed to reassure critics of the composting program, who argue the city is misleading residents about what happens to their food scraps while also creating an environmental justice issue. As of now, food waste that gets picked up by DSNY will usually wind up in one of two places: a composting facility on Staten Island or a wastewater-treatment plant on the edge of Brooklyn and Queens. But last year, DSNY reported that only one-fifth of food waste collected actually makes it to the composting facility. The rest is sent to the wastewater-treatment plant in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint. (Asked for updated figures, Gragnani said the department did not have a precise breakdown, as the numbers often fluctuate.) At the wastewater-treatment plant, organic waste is mixed with sewage sludge and broken down in an anaerobic digester, where it produces methane and other gases. This cocktail of gases — known as biogas — can then serve multiple purposes: It can be used on-site to power the facility itself, or it could be refined into renewable natural gas and used to heat homes. Instead, the New York City plant has been blasted by locals for flaring off excess methane. The solids leftover from this process — known as the digestate — could technically be used to enhance soils. However, advocates worry it may be too low-quality to be of any use to farmers and gardeners since it was originally mixed with city wastewater, which means it may ultimately end up in landfills, too. (Asked for comment, Gragnani directed Grist to New York state's Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the digesters.) In Los Angeles, the city's guidance on curbside organics collection is clear about where it goes: Food scraps and yard waste collected are turned into compost that is then used by farmers to grow organic products. In San Francisco, according to Piasecki, some of the compost created by scraps is then used by Napa Valley wineries. He added that this could be a moment 'for New York to develop that kind of story,' especially if compost from the city eventually helps rural communities throughout the state. For now, DSNY may have its hands full, answering to critics who say the anaerobic digestion process further entrenches the fossil fuel industry at a time when cities need instead to decarbonize. For example, when biogas is converted into what's known as renewable natural gas and then given to the local utility company for free, it's 'creating an incentive for rebuilding all the [gas] pipes and making the investments in this fossil fuel infrastructure,' said Eric Goldstein, the New York City environmental director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Asked to respond to these criticisms, Gragnani, the press secretary for DSNY, said, 'Would the 'local environmental advocates' you spoke with prefer that we use fracked gas to heat homes and businesses? Unfortunately, their rhetoric can discourage participation and send more food and yard waste to release methane in faraway landfills.' Anaerobic digestion can play an important role within food-waste reduction programs, said Marcel R. Howard, zero-waste program manager at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. But he added that it 'must be implemented within zero-waste and social justice frameworks to prevent environmental harm and prioritize community needs.' In the end, New York City has its work cut out for it. Reyes said that he wants to see 'real, legitimate' outreach from DSNY on why separating food waste matters. 'I am a huge supporter of municipal organic recovery that actually works,' he said. That means having the community actually buy into the idea of keeping food out of landfills and ensuring environmental justice issues — like flaring methane in a populous neighborhood — are not created in the process. 'Those are, I think, more acceptable and more dignified solutions than the mess that we have in New York City,' he added. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New York City is making people compost — or pay up on Apr 10, 2025.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
How to compost in New York City and other resources
Editor's note: This video aired in a previous newscast. NEW YORK (PIX11)—A new law went into effect on Tuesday. New Yorkers must now compost or face fines. 'Curbside Composting service is now available to ALL NYC residents citywide,' reads the New York City Department of Sanitation website. More Local News To compost, collect leaves, yard waste, food scraps, and food-soiled paper in a labeled bin. You can place these items in your DSNY brown bin or a smaller, secured bin. Bins must be 55 gallons or smaller and lined with clear plastic, paper, or compostable bags to help keep them clean. Extra leaves and yard waste can be placed in a paper lawn and leaf bag or a clear plastic bag. Twigs and branches can be bundled with twine and placed next to the bins and bags. Meat, bones, shells, and dairy Greasy, uncoated paper plates and pizza boxes Leaves and grass clippings Products that are labeled compostable Curbside composting service will be picked up once a week on your recycling day, according to the New York City Department of Sanitation. The city of New York is hosting virtual information sessions so New Yorkers can learn more about composting. The information sessions are on the following dates: Thursday, April 10 at 4:00 PM Thursday, April 24 at 6:00 PM You can also watch a webinar on composting here. DSNY has lots of information on its website, such as a composting tip sheet with guidelines. Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
01-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
It's Been Five Years Since New York Banned Single-Use Plastic Bags. They're Still Floating Around.
Since New York's ban on the distribution of single-use plastic bags took effect five years ago, Francisco Marte, who owns five bodegas in the Bronx with his brothers, has been conflicted about how to transition away from their use. At three of his stores, he has stopped handing out plastic bags altogether, charging customers a 25-cent fee for a reusable bag, which are more expensive for him to stock up on. But at the other two bodegas, in low-income neighborhoods, Mr. Marte hands out plastic bags to avoid passing on the cost of a more expensive reusable bag to residents. Still, he warns them that he'll soon phase out plastic altogether. Some customers have started to bring their own bags, he said, but it's 'little by little.' New York State's ban in 2020 was part of an effort to curb litter and minimize greenhouse emissions caused by plastic bag production. Mr. Marte, who is also president of the Bodega and Small Business Group in New York, said compliance with the ban had been mixed among the group's more than 2,000 members, which include corner stores, restaurants, barber shops and beauty salons. Many business owners don't want to charge their customers more by handing out the comparatively expensive reusable bags. Still, the number of plastic bags in circulation has 'reduced a lot,' he said. When the ban was announced, state officials said New Yorkers used 23 billion plastic bags each year, 85 percent of which ended up in landfills, recycling machines, waterways and streets. While the state has not collected comprehensive data on how many fewer plastic bags have been used since the ban took effect, a study by the New York City Department of Sanitation found that the prevalence of plastic shopping bags in the waste stream fell 68 percent from 2017 to 2023. The Bag Waste Reduction Act took effect on March 1, 2020 — exactly five years ago — though the coronavirus pandemic and a lawsuit from plastic bag manufacturers delayed its enforcement for months. Retailers receive a warning before being slapped with a $250 fine if they violate the law again, and a $500 fine for every violation thereafter. Despite the penalties, plastic bags are still a common sight on the streets of New York City. In part, that's because the rule, as it's currently written, includes several exceptions: Bags used to package bulk items, for example, as well as those provided by pharmacies to carry prescription drugs, are excluded. Restaurants are also exempt. Below, a visual tour of all the places plastic bags still show up in the city.
