On behalf of The Action Environmental Group we want to wish you a happy and healthy New Year!
We wanted to take this time to not only thank you for being a customer, partner or just a blog reader but also inform you of the street closures tonight in Manhattan due to the NYE celebrations.
A crackdown on trash halfway around the world has disrupted the U.S. recycling industry and could cost North Jersey municipalities some of the coveted revenue they earn from selling the paper, plastic and aluminum cans that residents put out at the curb.
STEVE HOCKSTEIN/SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
Alfred DuBois, center, Clifton’s recycling coordinator, pulling out contaminants from a delivery with Steven Rodriguez, left, and Andrew Soboto at the city’s recycling center.
For much of this year, China has rejected bales of recyclables shipped from the United States that are too contaminated by regular trash. China’s effort to erect what’s become known as a “green fence” against contaminated recyclables has prompted recycling companies here to start charging financial penalties to the towns and corporate clients whose recyclables are tainted with too much regular garbage.
“Make no mistake: This is a serious situation that can have major repercussions for the future of the recycling industry in the U.S.,” Chris Riviello, managing partner of Atlantic Coast Fibers, a Passaic-based recycling company, told the municipalities it serves in a recent letter.
It’s not clear how much North Jersey towns stand to lose, but some municipalities make between $300,000 and $500,000 on recycling.
And towns in Bergen County could be especially vulnerable because they use a system in which their recycling hauls are more likely than those in Passaic County to include regular trash.
Given the region’s proximity to the Port of Newark, much of the recyclables collected in North Jersey, particularly paper, gets sent abroad, where mills turn it into new products. Much of it is sold to China, which bought $11.3 billion in scrap metal, plastic and paper from the U.S. in 2011.
China’s action — and the response by recyclers — has come at a time when towns, especially those in Bergen County, have been trying to entice more residents to recycle by embracing simpler single-stream recycling programs. Residents can combine paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum and plastic in one container rather than separating them.
Some experts say single-stream recycling increases the amount of material collected by up to 30 percent and provides more revenue to the towns that sell their recyclables. But given China’s crackdown, some in the industry question the wisdom of having moved to a single-stream system. They say that so much garbage gets mixed in with the recyclables that it significantly reduces its value.
“It’s easier to recycle when you have single-stream. But it’s also easier for residents to throw non-recyclables into the mix,” said Jerry Lobosco, senior vice president with Green Sky Industries, a Clifton-based recycling company with many municipal clients in the region.
Lobosco said his company sends about 95 percent of its paper and cardboard to Asia — principally China, but also to South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and India.
Nationally, the typical single-stream load of recyclables contains 20 percent non-recyclables, he said. Whether companies sort recyclables by hand or invest in heavily automated sorting facilities, they are sometimes unable to separate out enough regular trash from the recyclables to satisfy the more stringent Chinese requirements.
Waste Management, which has numerous municipal clients in New Jersey, has seen the volume of residue in recyclables go from about 7 percent to 20 percent. “We’ve seen bowling balls, garden hoses, bar bells,” said John Hambrose, Waste Management spokesman for the mid-Atlantic region.
China is taking a hard line on recyclables from America as it tries to clean up its industries’ reputation for lax standards. The rejections are also for economic reasons, said Chaz Miller, director of policy for the National Waste and Recycling Association. “Their economy has cooled down, so their mills aren’t screaming for raw materials right now,” he said.
The trade with China had long been good business for both sides. China sends so many products to the United States that the shipping containers were going back empty. Then shipping companies realized the containers could be filled with cardboard, paper and other recyclables collected in the United States and shipped back to China, where factories in China could buy it and reuse the material.
Because China has been rejecting so many shipments, recycling companies such as Atlantic Coast Fibers, Waste Management and Green Sky Industries are more closely inspecting the loads they receive from municipal and corporate customers and charging them if they find excessive amounts of non-recyclables.
The recycling companies pay the municipalities for a load of recyclables, but then have to sort out the trash, and pay to have the trash disposed in a landfill. Those extra processing and tipping costs reduce their profit. Add to that the increasing amounts of their material being rejected by China, which further reduces revenue.
“Basically recycling companies have to work more to make less money,” Miller said. “Single-stream can cut collection costs, but there are increasing processing costs.”
Marie Kruzan, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, agreed. “Single-stream created a problem and China’s green fence makes it more difficult,” Kruzan said. “The green fence is definitely affecting the marketplace. And it’s not going away. The recycling world is changing.” The changes mean municipalities will see changes in their contracts, she said.
Municipalities can often earn several hundred thousand dollars a year selling their recyclables. And the more people recycle, the less towns must pay in tipping fees to dispose of garbage at landfills. Tipping fees currently run about $60 per ton.
The crackdown in China could cost towns. “There’s certainly going to be a reduction in recycling revenue for municipalities, and of course we’re concerned,” said Guy Picone, director of public works for Paramus.
Like many towns, Paramus has a five-year contract which guarantees the borough a floor price on its recyclables, but if the trend continues, the borough will likely see that floor price drop, Picone said. Paramus has a dual-stream system, which insulates it a bit. Recyclables collected through a dual-stream system, where paper is collected separately from the other materials, are generally less contaminated with non-recyclables than those collected via a single-stream system. Paper can easily become contaminated by food, liquids and shards of glass mixed into the recycling stream.
Though contamination in recycling has increased because more municipalities have switched to a single-stream system, many in the industry say single-stream won’t be going away. “Single-stream is not a mistake,” Lobosco said. “It makes sense for some municipalities. It doesn’t make sense for others. It comes down to how much care residents take — how well a municipality educates its residents.”
Despite the trend toward the easier single-stream system of recycling, recycling numbers remain relatively low throughout the state, according to the latest data from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Statewide, there was a 40 percent recycling rate for municipal solid waste in 2011, down 31,250 tons from the prior year and well below the state goal of 50 percent.
Recycling, however, was up for a second year in Bergen County, which had a 45 percent recycling rate in 2011 — fourth best among the state’s 21 counties. It also ranked first in the total amount of waste recycled — about 525,000 tons. That was 42,000 tons more than in 2010. Passaic County saw a 17 percent decline in municipal recycling in 2011, with 39,000 fewer tons of material collected. Passaic County’s municipal recycling rate was 30 percent, ranking it 18th among the 21 counties.
But looking at recyclables collected by weight can be a misleading way to gauge the rate of recycling, many say.
For instance, many products now get packaged in plastic rather than far heavier glass containers to cut down on shipping costs. And plastic bottles themselves are thinner and lighter than they used to be, said Miller.
“Is it so bad for recycling tonnage to be down?” said Al DuBois, Clifton’s recycling coordinator.
“Not necessarily. It could mean we are succeeding at source reduction. Bottlers and others are eliminating weight, and in the end that’s all better for the environment.”
Email: oneillj@northjersey.com Twitter: @JamesMONeill1
- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/Changes_in_Chinas_recycling_could_cost_NJ_towns_cash.html?page=all#sthash.Uk9yERNx.dpuf
Watch the video below to see how we can designate certain streams of recyclables like mixed paper, white paper or plastic. You will see the green (designated stream) will be blown in a different direction to separate it from the rest of the waste stream (red).
New York Looks to Cut Emissions by Private Trash Haulers
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times
An Action Carting truck collecting cardboard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The company is one of New York’s largest haulers, with 80 trucks on city roads every day.
As aging garbage trucks rumble down the streets of New York, their fumes draw protests from residents and environmental advocates and raise concerns about asthma and other health effects.
The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, which has made cleaner air a priority, has taken steps to modernize the city’s fleet of diesel-powered vehicles — including about 2,000 trucks used for picking up residential waste and recyclables — with newer, less-polluting models. Under a law the mayor signed in September, by 2017 at least 90 percent of these vehicles must meet the tougher emission control standards for diesel trucks that the federal Environmental Protection Agency set in 2007.
But those trucks are not the only ones on the streets. Now the administration wants to impose similar requirements on private haulers who dispose of the city’s commercial garbage and recyclables, as well as construction and demolition debris.
A new proposal would require about 8,300 private collection trucks to meet the same federal emissions standards by 2020, three years after the deadline for the municipal fleet. The proposal, which requires the approval of the City Council, is part of a larger package of revisions to the city’s air pollution control code.
Council officials said on Monday that they were reviewing the plan.
A report released last month by the New York City Business Integrity Commission, which oversees the private haulers, and the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group, projects that if no action is taken, the private trucks will emit a total of 1,368 tons of particulate matter and 23,198 tons of nitrogen oxides between 2013 and 2030. These substances, found in diesel exhaust, have been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular problems, smog and global warming.
The report projects that if private haulers retire their older trucks by 2020, particulate matter emissions would be reduced by 796 tons during that time period; it would be the equivalent of removing 341,829 cars from city roads every year between 2014 and 2030, the report said. Nitrogen oxides would also be reduced by 12,054 tons, or the equivalent of removing 862,704 new cars or 143,784 old cars from the roads every year.
Under the proposal, a refuse collection company would be given several options, including retrofitting older trucks with new engines that meet the 2007 federal emission standards, or replacing them entirely with new vehicles that do. Shari C. Hyman, the commissioner of the Business Integrity Commission, called the proposed mandate “a balanced approach that will help achieve the air quality goals of the administration without unfairly burdening private industry.”
The report, which was written by M. J. Bradley & Associates using city data, estimated that the overall cost of the proposal to the private haulers would be $484 million, on top of the $571.4 million they would be paying to replace trucks through normal turnover. However, commission officials said this figure could be significantly lower if trucks were retrofitted instead of replaced. The report also noted that with more new trucks and fewer old ones, savings on repairs and maintenance could be as much as $15.5 million.
Several companies’ representatives said they supported the proposal. “With or without legislation, we support cleaner emissions for our industry and, frankly, every industry,” said Ron Bergamini, chief executive officer of Action Environmental Group, the parent company of Action Carting, one of the city’s largest haulers with 80 trucks on city roads every day. He said he expected that half of those trucks would have to be replaced or retrofitted by 2020 — at a cost of about $270,000 for each new truck, and $25,000 to $35,000 for each retrofit.
But others said that while they supported the concept of reducing emissions, they remained concerned about the proposed legislation.
“Companies that collect waste and recyclables in New York City typically operate on very narrow margins and are limited as to their ability to raise prices,” said David Biderman, general counsel for the National Solid Waste Management Association, a trade group that represents more than 750 waste and recycling companies nationally, including 75 in the New York region. “This proposed legislation as well as other legislative proposals pending before the City Council are likely to increase carters’ costs significantly over the next few years if they are enacted.”
Patrick Hyland, executive director of the New York Metropolitan Trucking Association, an industry group for more than 50 heavy construction truck companies, said that he had initially resisted the proposal but that the commission’s willingness to adopt a 2020 deadline after considering an earlier date had made it “more palatable” to his members, who typically spend $160,000 to $190,000 on each new truck.
“I voiced my concerns about hitting them with something like this while some of them were still digging themselves out of the economic downturn, coupled with Hurricane Sandy,” Mr. Hyland said. “They need to prepare themselves financially.”
Jim Tripp, senior counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said he saw the proposal for private haulers as an “innovative” step in the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to improve air quality, which have included banning smoking in public places and phasing out the use of certain kinds of home heating oils. “I think it will have a citywide benefit since we all have garbage picked up and these trucks are everywhere,” he said.
A version of this article appears in print on November 12, 2013, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Private Trash Haulers Are Now Focus in Quest for Clean Air.
New York, New York (September 26, 2013)
Joe Burke, Action
Environmental Group, Inc’s Director of Sales, publicly announced the
company’s recycling business, Action Environmental Solutions, opening of their
new state of the art recycling facility in the Bronx at NYC’s GoGreen
conference. This recycling center will ultimately change the way New York City
recycles. This new recycling facility called The Optical Sorter uses RedWave
optic technology to automate the recycling process and extract more waste from
landfills.
An optical sorter uses infrared
technology to detect and separate all seven grades plastics, white paper from
mixed paper and cardboard from the rest. This allows Action to extract higher
quality recyclables out of the waste stream. This will also allow the customer
to single stream their recycling. Single stream is when all recyclables go into
one bin, no longer needing to separate. The Action Environmental Group
philosophy behind the purchase of this vast and innovate recycling center is to
lead NYC into the future of recycling.
“This technology allows us to
extract recyclable material from what would otherwise be land filled. The goal
of recycling has not changed but the method now has greatly improved.”- CEO of
Action Environmental Group, Ronald S. Bergamini
Action is a proud sponsor of the Susan G Komen foundation and every year we like to participate in the big NYC 5k Race for a Cure. This was especially exciting this year for the Action team as we asked our newest employees from the recent Interstate Waste Services acquisition to participate. Coming together for the first time and participating in a cause that effects us all in one way or another.
Some employees raced for the women in their family, a mother, sister or a friend. We are so proud of all the employees that participated in this years race. We got to have a lot of fun too!
. Action is a proud partner of the Center for
Employment Opportunity program. We believe in a brighter future for
everyone. We believe in second chances and influencing public policy to
give those chances. It affects us all.
Below is a video for The Center for Employment Opportunities' (CEO) proven model helps break
the cycle of incarceration and saves taxpayers' money. This video was
the result of a collaboration of MTV, Catchafire, and CEO. CEO-change
that works.
Builder
Better Futures: Eco-Friendly Policies for Business and Individuals
By Sam Marquit
The world is growing, and knowledge is everywhere. People are
learning how to significantly reduce the amount of waste in their lives. In
today's world landfills have taken over, deforestation has increased and the
majority of people aren't recycling their waste. There are small and big things
that people and businesses can do to lessen the burden on Mother Earth. In my
work as a contractor, I've seen the green materials market grow to $116
billion. People are more concerned about the environment and what's going to
happen to our planet in just a few hundred years. The market is expected to
grow to $254 billion in 2020, which is hard to believe considering the amount
of pollution and waste that doesn't seem to be avoidable. Many practices that
are seen in a commercial setting can be implemented at the home front.
Millions of people go to Las Vegas every year. They come to this
desert specifically for the promise of a good time. The casinos, luxury hotels
and entertainment are some of the top reasons that travelers will cross-oceans
to visit. Still there is one hotel that is doing something different for the
environment. The Las Vegas Palazzo Hotel and Resort changed some of its policies
to be more sustainable and less wasteful. They included a watering system for
their landscapes that saves eight million gallons of water every year. This
system incorporates drip irrigation, moisture sensors and artificial turf
grass. Because of its sustainable features, the hotel was recently named the most
eco friendly hotel in America.
At home people can change the way that they use water for
landscapes and gardens as well. They can install drip irrigation systems, too,
or they can reuse gray water from showers and washer machines to water gardens.
There are also ways to collect rainwater. People can install low flow toilet
and tank less water heaters to lessen water waste throughout the home.
Recycling is one of the major ways that people contribute to
living green. They are able to reduce most aluminum, paper and plastic products
just with curbside pickup. There are also drop-off locations throughout the
city that will take other items like wood scraps, paint, hazardous chemicals
and much more. The ARIA hotel created a large sorting center to reduce its
waste. Now the hotel diverts 47 percent of waste from going to landfills, and
they send food scraps to local farms. Individuals are learning how to use
compost bins to use food scraps to fertilize their lawns and cut back on waste
as well. Another practice that is gaining popularity is “up cycling”. Instead of
throwing away old or worn out items, people are finding new and creative uses
for those items.
Action's Jenna DiBella honored Anthony Concepcion, Encore's Weekend Manager, at the Yankee Game last night (8/13/13).
Action has worked with Encore Community Services for the past 4 years inviting our employees to volunteer several times of year.
Encore Community Services, is an oasis’s in the heart of Manhattan
extending from 14th to 110 Street on the West side.
Providing support, meals, social services, and
housing for hundreds of homeless and low income elderly living in and
around this area; Providing elderly with whatever means possible, so
their remaining years can be lived in dignity and comfort.
When does an everyday product like bleach become hazardous
waste that requires special handling when disposed of by stores? This is not an
academic question; companies that lack policies to adequately address it could
face large fines or even criminal charges.
Case in point: On May 28 Bentonville, Arkansas–based
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to pay more than $80 million after pleading guilty
to six counts of violating the Clean Water Act in California and one count of
violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in
Missouri.
The six Clean Water Act charges were filed by the U.S.
attorney's office in Los Angeles and San Francisco and consolidated in the
Northern District of California. According to documents filed in the U.S.
district court in San Francisco, before January 2006 Wal-Mart did not have a
program in place and failed to train employees on proper hazardous waste
management and disposal. As a result, products like cleaners and aerosols were
placed in municipal trash bins or poured into the local sewer. Hazardous waste products
were also transported without proper safety documentation to return centers.
In the western district of Missouri, the retailer admitted
that between 2006 and 2008, it trucked more than 2 million pounds of pesticides
and household products from return centers to a recycling facility, where the
pesticides were mixed and processed for reuse without the required
registration, ingredients, or use information.
The company was slapped with civil and criminal
penalties—the first time a case of this type resulted in criminal charges.
Combined with the civil penalties it paid earlier in California and Missouri
for the same acts detailed in the federal cases, the total financial penalty
Wal-Mart racked up was more than $100 million.
And it could have been worse. Clean Water Act violations
require an automatic suspension and debarment from federal contracts. But in
this instance, according to Michael Jacob Steel, a partner at Morrison &
Foerster, Wal-Mart was able to get assurances that there would be no impact on
its government contracts. Joseph Johns, chief of the environmental crimes
section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California
and lead prosecutor of the federal case, would not comment on the criminal
charges or penalties. He did say this: "Federal laws apply to every
company in the nation without regard to the size of the company. It is simply
unacceptable for any business to manage its hazardous waste by dumping it down
the drain or dumping it in the trash."
Environmental law can be a difficult area for companies to
navigate. "Environmental regulations can be very complex and expensive to
comply with," says Johns. "While a bottle of nail polish may be
harmless sitting on a shelf, if broken in the store or returned after being
opened, it becomes a hazardous waste that must be properly stored, managed,
transported, and disposed of."
Wal-Mart is not the first major retailer to face penalties
related to waste disposal. Morrison & Foerster's Steel, who specializes in
environmental compliance and enforcement defense, says that one of his first
cases settled in August 2007, when The Home Depot agreed to pay almost $10
million in a civil case over its failure to properly store and transport
hazardous waste.
Since then, other companies have entered into similar
agreements, including Costco ($3.6 million), CVS ($14.6 million), Kmart ($8.7
million), Save Mart ($2.6 million), Target ($22.5 million), and Walgreens
($16.6 million). (Asked to comment, only CVS responded, saying that it has taken
steps to "bolster" its program by establishing reporting requirements
and revising employee training for handling hazardous materials in its retail
stores.)The numbers alone should get the attention of retailers. "When you
add the recent fines in the Wal-Mart case," says Steel, "these are
big numbers that are only going to generate the increased interest of
regulators."
Until the federal case against Wal-Mart, Steel says that all
the cases were civil actions, mainly involving California. There are reasons
the bulk of the cases came from there, he says. One is the long-standing
partnership between local prosecutors and county health departments, which
share information and coordinate environmental compliance investigations.
"California also has a special test for toxicity called
the 'Fish Kill' test," says Steel. "Investigators will pour the
product into a fish tank to see how long they will survive. If the fish die,
it's a hazardous waste, even if federal law says it is not."
The best way that companies can avoid problems is by
creating rules and training employees. Steel works with in-house attorneys,
including those at Kmart and Costco, to develop and implement compliance
policies. "Many companies already have policies and programs in place; those
that don't are putting themselves at risk," says Steel. "Creating a
plan takes time, costs money, and is complex and should not be done in crisis
mode after receiving a call from a prosecutor." David Rieser, special
counsel at Much Shelist, says compliance programs should include two
components: one on storing damaged goods and another on handling customer
returns. "Everyone in the stores must be trained, from managers to those
stocking the shelves," says Rieser. Codes must be created to identify the
materials, and bins set aside for disposal, he adds.
Wal-Mart created a program to address these issues in 2006.
According to a press release, it includes employee training and a compliance
office made up of, among others, former officials with the Environmental
Protection Agency. "We continue to run the same program in every store and
club that was deployed years ago," Phyllis Harris, chief compliance
officer at Wal-Mart U.S., said in a statement. Johns says simply having a
policy isn't enough. "Corporate counsel must take extra steps to conduct
rigorous internal audits, correct any violations identified, discipline
employees responsible for the violations, and then disclose the shortcomings to
federal regulators," he says.
"There are safe harbor provisions in place to shield a
company from charges identified during an internal audit," he adds.
"But for a company to avail itself of the shield, regulators must be
notified."
What
is China’s Green Fence and how does it impact you?
As the U.S. became a consumer economy with a shrinking
manufacturing base, Chinese manufacturing was growing. The U.S. generates
more scrap than it is able to consume domestically. Meanwhile Chinese demand
for raw materials grew and recyclables are a lower cost raw material compared
to virgin raw materials.
The United States has been exporting
its raw materials such as metal, paper, plastic and more, instead of recycling
the materials here in the U.S. While this is good for the trade deficit with
China – scrap is our largest export to that country – the quality of
recyclables is becoming a problem. China is implementing higher standards on
imports of recycled material via Operation Green Fence. This could have quite
an impact on the recycling industry and the U.S. in a broader context, forcing
the U.S. to have higher standards for what they export worldwide.
One reason the United States began
exporting to China is because, as a result of the large amount of goods we
import from them, the shipping containers that carried those goods were being
sent back to the country empty. It made sense to send them back filled with
bales of empty cardboard boxes which those goods had been packed in because
China does not have the forest resources that the U.S. does. Most of China’s
packaging was previously made from recycled fibers which proved quite flimsy.
China wanted to import our high quality cardboard to mix in with their low
quality fibers to make better packaging. This win-win situation began the
exporting of our recyclables.
Beginning in February of 2013 China
launched what they’re calling “Operation Green Fence“, a 10-month long
initiative that kicked off in February to prevent the importation of solid
waste-contaminated shipments. Operation Green Fence has set a limit of 1.5
percent prohibitive, or allowable contaminant, in each bale, in an effort to
keep trash out of China. Headed by Wang Jiwei, vice president and
secretary-general of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling
Metal Branch (CMRA), the new initiative will include random inspection of all
forms of “imported waste,” meaning metal, plastic, textiles, rubber and
recovered paper materials.
Therefore all recyclable material must be separated thoroughly
before being placed into the recycling bin. Food waste left on a container can
contaminate the whole bin. To maximize your recycling efforts it is important
to make sure that no food waste gets into the recycling receptacle.
As many of you know Action works a lot with the Lou Gehrig Middle school in the
Bronx. Over this past year we formed an environmental club with the school
called N.E.A.T. There are 15 students in the club that felt inspired to join
this club because they want to make a change in their local communities. On June
18th a few members of the Action team went to go re cultivate a local community
garden. Thanks to the help and donations of Downes Tree Service we were able to
turn an almost abandoned garden into a lively and colorful place in front of the
local community center.
It was a really fun morning and the kids put in a ton of work! We all were astounished by the transformation!
Laura Merli an intern of Global Green recently took a tour of our new Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in the Bronx with Lily Kelly, the director of the Coalition for Resource Recovery. We love working with Global Green and are proud to be recognized by this global organization. Watch the video below for Laura and Lily's coverage of the Optical Sorter tour and please be sure to check out Global Green's blog as well http://globalgreen.org/blog
Thursday, April 25, 2013
MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES MORE THAN 100 RESTAURANTS TO PARTICIPATE IN
THE “FOOD WASTE CHALLENGE,” NEW CITY PROGRAM TO REDUCE AMOUNT OF WASTE SENT TO
LANDFILLS
Initiative Will Help Meet PlaNYC
Goal to Divert 75 Percent of Solid Waste from Landfills by 2030
City Also Launches Gardens for Healthy Communities Making Nine Acres of
Outdoor Space Open for Community Gardens
Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg today announced that more than 100 restaurants will participate in
the first-ever Food Waste Challenge, a new City program to reduce the amount of
organic waste sent to landfills and the greenhouse gases that waste produces. The
program will help meet the City’s PlaNYC
goals to divert 75 percent of all solid waste from landfills by 2030 and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Food waste comprises one-third of the city’s more
than 20,000 tons of daily refuse and restaurants account for 70 percent of
commercial food waste. Participating restaurants have pledged to reduce 50
percent of the food waste they send to landfills through compositing and other
waste prevention strategies. The restaurants and restaurant groups include:
Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group, Blue Hill, Chipotle, Cleaver Co.,
Juice Generation, Le Bernardin, Momofuku, Pret-a-Manger, Union Square
Hospitality Group and ‘WichCraft. The initiative builds on the organic waste
programs that the City has developed, including a pilot in some Brooklyn and
Manhattan public schools that has cut the amount of garbage participating
schools send to landfills by 38 percent, and a residential organics recycling
program that will begin in Staten Island next month. The Mayor also announced
the launch of Gardens for Healthy Communities, which will open nine acres of
under-utilized City-owned outdoor space for 20 local gardening projects. The
Mayor made the announcements at the New York Times “Building Sustainable
Cities” Conference at the Times Center in Manhattan.
“From franchises to farm-to-table restaurants,
New York’s food industry is joining our efforts to cut waste and reduce
greenhouse gas emissions to build a greener, greater New York,” said Mayor
Bloomberg. “Restaurants are a vital part of our economy and culture, and their
participation in the Food Waste Challenge will help inform New Yorkers about
sustainable practices and encourage their adoption.”
“Yesterday
we launched the largest expansion of the City’s household recycling program in
decades and today we're working with the restaurant industry to tackle food
waste – most of which is still going to landfills today,” said Deputy Mayor for
Operations Cas Holloway. “Restaurants are an engine of the City’s economy and
by accepting the Food Waste challenge, these business owners will make that
engine run much cleaner – which is great for New Yorkers and the environment.”
“As part of
the obesity task force, New York City is working to ensure that more New
Yorkers have access to healthy fruits and vegetables and community gardens are
a critical component to meeting that commitment,” said Deputy Mayor for Health
and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs. “The additional acres will promote urban
agriculture and help transform our communities by re-allocating underutilized
land.”
“By
diverting our food waste from landfills, New York City is taking an important
step towards a reducing harmful greenhouse gases and helping achieve the city’s
PlaNYC goals,” said City Council Speaker
Christine C. Quinn. “The additional 20 community garden sites, on the other
hand, will give New Yorkers the opportunity to enjoy increased access to open,
green space, environmental learning opportunities and healthy, fresh food.”
“Community
gardens create places to gather and foster awareness of healthy food options
and benefits of fresh foods” said Department of Parks and Recreation
Commissioner Veronica M. White. “We are proud of the fact that these sites will
be managed by our GreenThumb program, the oldest and largest community garden
program in the nation.”
“We know
community gardens are often hubs for healthy activity –hosting weekly farmers
markets, working with school groups, or donating produce to pantries,” said City
Food Policy Coordinator Kim Kessler.“Many
also compost – making their contribution to reducing food waste. I’m thrilled
that today’s announcements advance both sustainability and health goals by
addressing both the production and disposal stages of the food cycle.”
“This
initiative builds upon the strong tradition of community gardening in New York
City, and by identifying 20 new available sites we will enable many more New
Yorkers to be a part of creating sustainable community managed spaces,” saidExecutive
Director of the GreenThumb Program Edie Stone.
“Recovering
the value of food waste is a goal that all New Yorkers can get behind,” said
Judith Enck, Regional Administrator, United States Environmental Protection
Agency. “There are enormous environmental and community benefits associated with
diverting food waste from landfill and restaurants can help lead the way. I
applaud Mayor Bloomberg for this visionary and enterprising initiative.”
“The
Mayor’s Food Waste Challenge offers restaurants the opportunity to voluntarily
implement positive changes that will benefit the community, the environment and
the bottom line,” said Rick Sampson, New York State Restaurant Association
President and CEO. “NYSRA is pleased to support the mayor on this initiative,
and its recognition of the valuable contributions to sustainability that NYC
restaurants are making.”
“Restaurants
can play a crucial role in helping to reduce our city’s food waste,” said Danny
Meyer, CEO and Founder of Union Square Hospitality Group. “We eagerly accept
the Mayor’s challenge and our restaurants are excited to help the city reach
its goal of diverting 50 percent of food waste, thereby helping to clean up the
atmosphere.”
“Diverting
food waste from landfill is a critical step towards achieving more efficient
and sustainable food systems,” said Peter Lehner, Executive Director of the
Natural Resources Defense Council. “With 40 percent of food in the U.S. going
uneaten, it’s also important to start reducing the waste in the first place,
which the measurement part of the Challenge helps restaurants to achieve. We
congratulate the Mayor and the participating restaurants for taking the
initiative in reducing and recycling food waste in NYC.”
“We are
committed to supporting Food Waste Challenge participants in their efforts to
divert organic waste from landfills,” said Ron Bergamini, CEO of Action
Environmental Group, parent company of New York City’s largest recycler of
commercial waste. “Providing transparent and high quality waste collection
solutions will make New York City a sustainable waste champion and a model for
the country.”
“We applaud
the Mayor’s office for launching the Food Waste Challenge,” said Lily Kelly,
Interim Director of Global Green USA’s Coalition for Resource Recovery. “When
more businesses recover their food waste it benefits all New Yorkers by
reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging investment in local
processing infrastructure. We are delighted to be working with the Mayor's office
to support this program.”
“The City’s
initiative to increase composting in the restaurants and cafeterias is an
extremely important component of increasing recycling rates in New York City,”
said Helena Durst of The Durst Organization. “We have been composting our
organic matter in nine of our commercial buildings and increased our landfill
diversion rate to over 80 percent of the waste we produce.Introducing a composting stream to our
restaurant tenants and the corporate cafeterias in our portfolio has been
instrumental in our high landfill diversion rate.”
Participants
in the Food Waste Challenge will conduct a waste audit to determine how much
waste they generate. The restaurants will use this baseline to track their
progress in diverting 50 percent of food waste from landfill.The City will work with participants to share
best practices and develop a toolkit of resources to help all participating
restaurants meet their targets efficiently. The toolkit will address topics
including staff training, how to measure waste, and composting. Food Waste
Challenge participants will also have access to local experts and organizations
that will provide assistance in meeting the diversion targets.
The Food
Waste Challenge builds on other public-private partnerships the City has
launched to generate sustainable practices and help meet the PlaNYC goals to decrease waste, reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. Last week, Mayor Bloomberg
announced that 10 global corporations had joined the Carbon Challenge, pledging
to reduce up to 40 percent of their greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10
years. City colleges, universities and hospitals have also pledged to
participate in the Carbon Challenge. According the
Carbon Challenge Progress Report, universities have measured an overall
reduction of nearly 13 percent, and the hospitals have measured an average
reduction of 6 percent of emissions in the last three years. Since the
launch of PlaNYC in 2007, citywide
emissions have fallen by 17 percent – more than halfway to reduction target of
30 percent by 2017.
The mayor
also announced the Gardens for Healthy Communities initiative, which will
convert 9 acres of vacant City land into up to 20 new community garden sites
across the five boroughs. The initiative is a part of the Mayor’s Obesity Task
Force Plan and is an expansion of the Parks Department’s GreenThumb program. Non-profit
and community groups will be encouraged to apply, and projects will be
evaluated for their ability to promote fresh food access and awareness as well
as sustainability initiatives such as rainwater harvesting and neighborhood
composting activities.The initiative
advances PlaNYC goals to promote
urban agriculture and create new opportunities to transform underutilized land,
including by identifying vacant city-owned sites suitable for urban agriculture
and increasing the number of community garden volunteers.
The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is
unfortunately still an issue for many New Yorkers and many New York businesses.
Even though we consider ourselves lucky our largest facility on 132nd
St in the Bronx was hit by Sandy. Our transfer station is located right on the
East River so the building was flooded by water and debris. We were able to get
our transfer station up and running almost immediately but there was still a
major clean up needed.
We contacted the Sustainable South
Bronx, an organization that began out of a desire to advocate for parks and
green development in the South Bronx and to promote environmental justice
within the neighborhood, to help us restore the East River coast line at 132nd
St.
“SSBx’s work has
evolved over the past decade and now reflects the belief that the environmental
challenges facing the South Bronx cannot be separated from the neighborhood’s
economic and social concerns. The South Bronx is part of New York’s 16th
Congressional District, the poorest urban congressional district in the nation.
Forty-seven percent of South Bronx residents live at or below the poverty line.
The unemployment rate is 27 percent and many individuals work in the informal
sector. Only thirty percent of the neighborhood’s adults have a high school
diploma.
Today, the mission of
SSBx is to address economic and environmental issues in the South Bronx – and
throughout New York City – through a combination of green job training,
community greening programs, and social enterprise. Over the last ten years,
SSBx has broadened its focus by linking environmental restoration to the
economic needs of low-income New Yorkers who are seeking a fresh start.”
Six individuals who are alumni of
the B.E.S.T Academy (The Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training), a program
dedicated to preparing low-income New York City residents for jobs in the
growing green collar sector came to our facilities for the cleanup. For a total
of seven days they cleaned the shore line removing debris from newspaper to
wreckage.
We are not only proud to work with
the Sustainable South Bronx but delighted by what a wonderful job they have
done. We thank the organization in general and those individuals who came for
the clean-up.
My day started out like most New York commuters, waiting in
line to go over the George Washington Bridge, sipping my morning coffee in
bumper to bumper traffic. As I made my way down the West Side Highway the sun
started to come out and the feeling of spring dawned upon me. The cold and
bitter winter is almost over! I couldn’t help but think of how alive New York
becomes in the spring. The energy of the New Yorker is revitalized; ready to
create from the inspiration conjured up during the winter. Despite being in traffic, it was a great day
to be in New York.
Walking down 14th street, I was delighted to find
the Con Edison building where the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce Award Breakfast
was being held very easily. As I rode in the elevator up to the ceremony, I
listened to the conversations around me. A young woman wearing imprinted lace
tights and rocking this amazing shabby coat was talking to another well dressed
man, both so intimidatingly fashionable that I started to doubt my outfit of
the day. To their right was another engaged couple discussing another Manhattan
Chamber of Commerce event that they had met at previously. Later, I found out
that the fashionable couple was Katia Beauchamp co-founder of BirchBox and her
husband. The other couple was a presenter and Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s
New York of the Year Danny Meyer. You can imagine my excitement during the
ceremony as I pieced together who I rode the elevator with.
As I walked into the room filled with people networking, I
search for my table observing the beautiful décor and pastries. After finding
my table, I sat down next to one of the friendliest people I meet that morning
Marcus and his co-worker Andrew. We chatted as I waiting for Action’s CEO Ron
Bergamini to arrive. (Ron and I are both from New Jersey and commute to either
Newark or the Bronx everyday so I think rush hour in Manhattan was something neither
of us are quite used to.)
The award ceremony was wonderful. It was informative as well
as entertaining. Some of the winners included Jane Rosenthal, a famous Hollywood
producer from New York who co-founded Tribeca Film Festival with Robert De Niro
after September 11th to get people back downtown to restore the New York
spirit that we all love.And before I
stray from the subject of traffic, Sam Schwartz of Sam Schwartz Engineering was
presented with the Mid- Sized Business of the Year Award for his company’s effort
in transportation planning and engineering. And remember Marcus who was so
friendly? He won the award for Restaurant of the Year- Red Rooster!
Then came Action’s big moment of the morning, Ron Beragmini
was presented with the Green Business of the Year Award. Ron accepted the award
and explained why a garbage company was receiving a Green award. Action’s
innovative project of building an Optical Sorter that will use optic lens to
identify different grades of paper by their composition will make recycling more
efficient for New York. The goal is landfill less and recycle more. I am so
proud to be a part of Action, not only for the recognition Ron and the company received
today but rather because Action is trying to make a change taking one step at a
time. Changing our ways in the consumerist society we grew up in and live in is
hard! Action’s practical method of getting New York to recycle makes it easy
for the customers. I am so happy that Ron and Action were recognized.
The final award New Yorker of the Year went to Danny Meyer he
created Shake Shack! One of my personal favorites since my freshman year of college.
I remember having to travel all the way from downtown to the Upper West Side to
get one of their delicious burgers. Now they have international locations and a
new location about to open in CitiFeild (one of our customers!).
Every event that I have been to for the Manhattan Chamber of
Commerce has always gone above my expectations and today was no different. Not
only am I inspired by the great leaders that were present but honored to have
been able to be there today.
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