New Yorkers May Soon Have to Compost, Whether They Want to or Not

In New York, the financial and cultural capital of the United States, access to organics collection sites is hit-or-miss, largely dependent on location and administrative caprice. New Yorkers who want to responsibly dispose of their hazardous waste, including electronics and paint, have even fewer options; many wait for a city legislator to sponsor an ad hoc disposal fair.

This legislation aims to bring New York City’s waste management practices into the modern era, and to embed them into law. Like recycling, the separation of food waste will be enforceable with fines.

But if recycling enforcement is any indication, penalties will likely be few and far between. Lily Baum Pollans, an associate professor at Hunter College who studies waste management, said the lack of enforcement is a factor in the city’s low compliance. The city’s overall curbside recycling diversion rate is roughly 17 percent.

The composting mandate encompasses all New York City residents, in buildings big or small, with the exception of the roughly 400,000 New Yorkers who live in public housing, because the public housing authority is “characterized as a federal agency,” and is not subject to such city mandates, said Shahana Hanif, who, with Keith Powers, are the other two leads sponsors of the legislative package.

To further the goal of reducing methane, some of the organic waste to be collected will be composted, a process that produces “hardly any methane,” according to Eric A. Goldstein, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But until the city sets up better composting infrastructure, much of those organics will be fed into anaerobic digesters, which Mr. Goldstein describes as superior to using landfills, but less than ideal. In those digesters, “the methane is captured to generate energy, replacing fossil fuels,” he said.

Roughly half of New York City’s residential waste is organic matter, and it “represents the largest portion of New York City’s residential solid waste that could be diverted from landfills,” according to a 2021 report from the New York City Independent Budget Office. (The Sanitation Department puts the proportion of organic waste at a more conservative 37 percent of the city’s waste stream.)

The report noted that the per-ton cost of hauling organic waste is significantly higher than it is for recyclables and regular trash, a situation that can only be fixed by expanding the program citywide.