It’s obvious that the Mayor or OMB or both just don’t get the point, that Waste Prevention is a money generator, an economic development stimulus, and an environmental boon all rolled into one.

The City’s own figures (1992 SWM Plan) show that waste prevention costs roughly a tenth of what an integrated solid waste management system without waste prevention costs. The City’s own research, carried out by the Council on the Environment, have demonstrated conclusively that the City could save millions of dollars in procurement expenditures by designing and implementing aggressive waste prevention measures in City offices. And since collection, processing, and disposal costs are avoided, not only the year after a waste prevention measure is introduced, but permanently without the need for further expenditures, the savings generated by prevention increase considerably as time goes on. How can the Administration, which prides itself on cutting costs, have missed the mark so dreadfully, by cutting out waste prevention programs, research, and education instead?

Waste prevention-related businesses, like recycling enterprises, have a huge potential for reinvigorating depressed neighborhoods. So much reusable waste is going into the dumpster which could be repaired, or remanufactured, and pressed back into service. For example, instead of dumping hundreds of bicycles into the waste stream, junior high school students in Inwood repair them, giving teenagers valuable vocational skills, and providing free bikes for nonprofit organizations. We need funds to encourage more school-based, as well as private, enterprise to rescue perfectly usable goods from the waste stream. The amount of durable products which need repair and refurbishment increases every year, and without investment in waste prevention enterprise, the waste stream will continue to grow, costing the City money for its collection and disposal. Where is the economy in cutting back on waste prevention, so that the City can spend ten times as much per ton on collection, processing and disposal? The City should be working to secure funds from the federal government to set up waste prevention businesses in the northern Manhattan / South Bronx redevelopment zone, not abandoning waste prevention.

The gap between the potential and the actual amounts of materials diverted for recycling and composting, as well as materials prevented is quite large at present, and the Administration’s desire to cut back on prevention and recycling education will exacerbate this gap. The recycling potential was determined in a DOS study done in 1990. The new mixed paper and bulk metal recycling programs constitute roughly half of the material that could be collected in an intensive recycling program.

So with current programs DOS is targeting about 60% of the waste stream for recycling, and if food and yard wastes were collected for composting, almost 80% of the waste stream would be recyclable. But we are only diverting 14%. The percentage is as high as 50% in other cities such as Minneapolis which have dedicated much more funding for recycling education. Though the City has still not produced any quantitative information regarding waste prevention achievements, it is certainly true that the tiny amount of money it has spent on waste prevention education has not even reached every New Yorker once. DOS has never sent its waste prevention materials to every city resident because it never has enough money. Its few radio and TV ads are for recycling. EPA has stated definitively that by just using one waste prevention method, quantity-based user fees, waste prevention and recycling can account for an additional 25-45% of the waste stream. It is innovative and persuasive education that can close the gap between the potential for waste prevention and recycling, and the current reality.

This example shows that the City has a choice: invest money now in education for waste prevention, recycling, and composting, so that these methods become the predominant means of waste management in NYC, or just give up and export everything. The Administration has given many indications that it wants to export in a big way. The decision to close the landfill without also committing to a vigorous, no-holds barred strategy to institute a predominantly prevention, recycling, and composting-based solid waste management system, will necessitate that the City will invest large amounts in either incineration or export. Once this decision is made, and recycling and prevention programs are dismantled, as they are being right now, and people go back to their wasteful ways, it will be next to impossible to retrain them once again to recycle and to change their purchasing and repair habits to reduce waste generation. We are at a cross-roads, where the City government can ensure that we make the most of the resources in our waste stream by creating economic opportunities in depressed areas in the City, and then selling the resources and new products, now and for years to come, or the City can squander it and all our resources, paying for them to be disposed of in out-of-City landfills. If we want to do the former, and I hope the Council sees to it that we do, we should restore funding to DOS for education, and economic development, and embark on a series of legislative initiatives to promote waste prevention and recycling. We hope you will start by passing Intro. 509 and continue to work with us to create new legislation to this end.