Legislation on Commercial Waste Zones, Composting and Sidewalk Cleanliness
Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management
Meeting overview
The Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management held a hearing on six bills covering commercial waste zones, composting infrastructure, transfer station use, and sidewalk cleanliness enforcement. Five of the six bills were sponsored by CM Sandy Nurse, who was not present to testify but whose legislation dominated the substantive discussion. No votes were taken; this was a standard oversight and testimony hearing.
The most contentious bill was Proposed Int. No. 911-A, sponsored by Minority Leader David Carr, which would increase the number of permitted carters in the Staten Island commercial waste zone from three to six and delay zone implementation until February 1, 2028. The hearing's timing was almost comically on-the-nose: Commissioner Anderson opened by noting that July 1, 2026 was the first day Staten Island businesses could sign up with their assigned zone carters. DSNY opposed the bill flatly, arguing it would undermine a seven-year implementation process, set a precedent for borough-by-borough carve-outs, and expose the City to litigation from already-awarded carters. Carr's counter-argument — that Staten Island never had the truck traffic and congestion problems that justified commercial waste zones elsewhere, and that 21% of businesses now have to switch carters involuntarily — was not without merit, but DSNY's point that this conversation was seven years too late landed harder. CM Carl Wilson raised a more technically substantive concern: a third Staten Island zone award was transferred via acquisition to Century Waste (which had bought Priority), rather than re-bid. Wilson argued this structure creates perverse incentives for companies to game the queue through acquisitions. Anderson acknowledged DSNY retains discretion to conduct new RFPs in appropriate circumstances but defended the current process as legally sound and consistent with standard contract assignment practice across City contracts.
On composting infrastructure, Int 0369-2026 would require DSNY to establish composting facilities in each borough capable of processing 100,000 to 180,000 wet tons annually. DSNY opposed it as physically and fiscally impossible — their existing Staten Island compost facility processes 40,000 wet tons per year, and finding five-times-that-scale sites in, say, Manhattan is a fantasy. However, the public testimony from NRDC, community composting operators, the Solid Waste Advisory Boards, and groups like Cafeteria Culture and Big Reuse strongly supported the bill's intent and argued the bill should be refined rather than abandoned. There was a notable undercurrent of frustration with co-digestion as the default organic waste pathway: multiple witnesses flagged that mixing food waste with sewage sludge produces PFAS-contaminated biosolids that are increasingly unwanted for land application, making aerobic composting a superior end-use. DSNY floated the possibility of using transferred Rikers Island properties for a large composting facility, which is worth watching. Int 0356-2026, allowing community composters to charge for organic waste drop-offs and sell compost, drew broad support; DSNY's position was essentially that existing rules already permit this and the bill may be unnecessary, though they committed to working with the Council on intent.
Int 0367-2026, requiring DSNY to accept commercial solid waste at City-owned marine and rail transfer stations, drew strong support from environmental justice advocates and the Solid Waste Advisory Boards as a long-overdue measure to redistribute waste processing burdens away from overburdened outer-borough communities. DSNY's position was supportive in principle but deferred implementation until after full commercial waste zone rollout by end of 2027, and noted there is currently only one rail transfer station, which is not permitted for commercial waste. The private waste industry, represented by the National Waste and Recycling Association, supported the goal but flagged concerns about mandatory participation, since companies built their pricing models under existing rules. Int 0353-2026, creating a commercial waste zones working group, was the closest thing to a consensus bill in the room — DSNY, the private industry, labor allies, and advocacy groups all supported it, and Anderson said DSNY would pursue a working group with or without legislation. Int 0075-2026, expanding sidewalk cleanliness enforcement to full business hours rather than one-hour daily windows, also drew no opposition and DSNY's strong support.
Numbers
- 79% of Staten Island businesses already used one of the three awarded commercial waste zone carters prior to zone implementation.
- 21% of Staten Island businesses must switch to a new carter under the commercial waste zone program.
- The Staten Island commercial waste zone originally attracted five bidders; one was ineligible having already been awarded 15 zones.
- DSNY's existing Staten Island composting facility processes 40,000 wet tons of organic waste per year.
- Int 0369-2026 would require composting facilities capable of processing at least 100,000 to 180,000 wet tons annually in each borough — roughly two-and-a-half to four-and-a-half times the current Staten Island facility's capacity.
- New York City residents and commercial businesses generate approximately 2 million tons of organic material annually, the vast majority of which goes to landfills, incinerators or co-digestion.
- Approximately one-third of New York City's total waste stream is food scraps, yard waste and food-soiled paper.
- DSNY awarded eight contracts following its 2023 procurement for organic waste processing capacity; seven of those contracts have been activated.
- Cafeteria Culture's pilot program diverted more than one ton of food scraps from just four schools in a few months with a single compost coordinator.
- Customer sign-up period for the Midtown South and Staten Island commercial waste zones runs from July 1 through August 31, 2026.
- Full citywide commercial waste zone implementation is targeted for end of 2027.
- Proposed Int. No. 911-A would delay Staten Island commercial waste zone implementation until February 1, 2028.
- Proposed Int. No. 911-A would increase the number of permitted Staten Island zone carters from no more than three to six.
- Brooklyn Community District 2 containerization sign-ups opened July 1, 2026; mandatory for buildings with 31 or more units, optional for buildings with 10 to 30 units.
- DSNY's organics transfer network includes seven transfer stations and one direct-delivery composting facility (Staten Island).
- The commercial waste zone program has been in development for approximately seven years since Local Law 199 passed in 2019.
- DSNY has been conducting new RFPs for open zone slots in two zones where awardee mergers created vacancies; responses received a few weeks prior to the hearing.
Action Points
- DSNY to begin outreach to Brooklyn Community District 2 businesses and residential buildings immediately following the hearing to support Empire Bin sign-ups.
- DSNY to publish and schedule a hearing on the final scope of work for the containerization program's draft environmental impact statement.
- DSNY to implement expanded commercial organics program to all food-related businesses ahead of the December 1, 2026 deadline established under Int 0031-2026.
- DSNY to roll out alternate side parking sticker violation alert program following passage of Int 0092-2026.
- DSNY to conduct outreach to Staten Island and Midtown South businesses during the July 1 to August 31 commercial waste zone sign-up period.
- DSNY to complete evaluation of new RFP responses for open zone slots in the two zones where awardee mergers created vacancies and announce new awards.
- DSNY to work with the Council to establish a formal commercial waste zones working group, with or without passage of Int 0353-2026.
- DSNY to work with DCAS to evaluate the feasibility of constructing a large-scale composting facility on transferred Rikers Island properties.
- DSNY to begin process of accepting commercial waste at marine and rail transfer stations after completion of full citywide commercial waste zone implementation by end of 2027.
- DSNY to work with the Council to clarify legislative intent of Int 0356-2026 on community composter charging rules, given that current rules may already permit the practice.
- Chair Sanchez to continue dialogue with Minority Leader Carr on the substance of Proposed Int. No. 911-A following the hearing.
- DSNY to make public the findings from the commercial waste zone RFP process regarding commercial hauler interest in using City marine transfer stations, as requested by the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board.
- CM Wilson to work with the Council on potential amendments to Local Law 199 to address merger and acquisition incentive problems identified during testimony, including protocols for pre-implementation awardee changes.
- Proponents of Int 0369-2026, including NRDC, Solid Waste Advisory Boards and community composting operators, to work with CM Nurse to revise the bill into an enactable form addressing DSNY's siting and capacity objections.
▸ Full Transcript
Good morning and welcome to today's New York City hearing on the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. At this time during today's hearing, no one should approach the dais. Please silence all electronic devices.
Thank you, Chair. Good morning and welcome to the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. I am Justin Sanchez, Council Member and Chair of this Committee. Thank you all for joining us today and I truly, truly, truly apologize for the delay in this morning's proceedings. That is not the way that we like to operate on this Committee, so I really apologize and thank you to everyone for being here on time. It is truly appreciated. Thank you also for working with us to change the Committee to an earlier time, because the entire plan was to get everyone out earlier if I had not been so late. So thank you, everyone.
I would also like to acknowledge the Council Members who are with us here today: CM Louis, CM Zhuang, Minority Leader Carr and CM Shanel Thomas-Henry. I know that CM Maloney was also here and will be returning to join us.
So the purpose of today's hearing is to hear six bills, five of which are sponsored by CM Sandy Nurse. Int 0075-2026 would amend the Department of Sanitation's enforcement routing program to allow for businesses to receive fines for sidewalk cleanliness violations during their hours of operation or between the hours of eight in the morning and seven in the afternoon. Int 0353-2026 would establish a commercial waste zone working group. Int 0356-2026 would require DSNY to adopt rules allowing community composters to charge the public for organic waste collection at drop-off sites and allow community composters to sell compost generated from drop-off sites to the public. Int 0367-2026 would require DSNY to accept and process commercial solid waste at all City-owned or operated marine and rail transfer stations and to publicly report the amount and type of waste received at such stations on an annual basis. Int 0369-2026 would require DSNY to establish one or more organic waste composting facilities in each borough.
We will also be hearing Int 0911-2026, sponsored by CM David Carr, which would require DSNY to enter into agreements with six commercial waste carters for the Borough of Staten Island and delay implementation of the Staten Island commercial waste zone until February 1, 2028.
I will now turn it over to CM Carr to provide a statement on his Bill.
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate you having this hearing today and I really want to commend you on your leadership of the Committee throughout the course of this year. I look forward to continuing to work with you on improving our quality of life across all of our boroughs. I just want to welcome our friends here today. I can promise you my cats, if they were here, would not be as well behaved as he is. Commissioner, always a pleasure to see you. I really appreciate your partnership since you returned to the agency and working on a whole host of issues to improve quality of life for Staten Islanders, and I really want to thank everyone at DSNY for the phenomenal job they do each and every week.
Proposed Int. No. 911-A is introduced, I think, to resolve a problem that has arisen as a result of the implementation of the commercial waste zones. In my view, when I was part of the work of my predecessor, Steve Matteo, he opposed this legislation because he felt that it was a solution to a problem in some parts of our City, but not one that we were facing in Staten Island, and yet it created negative externalities for the borough. We had a perfectly working market situation in Staten Island with respect to commercial carting and there were not the negative consequences that you are seeing in other places, where you had multiple carters serving blocks, different businesses had different contracts, and the negative results that attended to that, namely congestion, truck traffic and noise at unfortunate hours, and just repeated visits by different trucks on the same block. That was never something we experienced on Staten Island.
So this is a solution that is great for other parts of the City and not necessarily one that was needed in Staten Island, but we are now limited as Staten Islanders in who we can choose to contract with. I am generally speaking against those kinds of market interferences because I think consumers should have a choice as to who their carter is. In particular, I am concerned about the possibility that longtime Staten Island businesses would be cut out of a market in which they have been able to serve for a number of years.
Additionally, I am concerned about one of the other consequences of this legislation, which is that before a commercial waste zone is implemented, or before an awardee could even become operational, you have companies that are seeking to sell before they even begin the work of their award. I think that creates the possibility where an awardee inflates the value of their company in order to be sold without ever having done any of the work, and I think that is something that we have to guard against. We have to protect the Department, we have to protect the taxpayer and we have to protect the consumers in each of the zones. So that is why I am putting forward Proposed Int. No. 911-A, because I think we need a pause on the implementation of the zone. I think we also need to make sure that Staten Islanders have as many choices as they can, and I think the unique circumstances that we have in our borough justify doing things differently there than we would do in the other commercial waste zones. So I urge my colleagues to be supportive of this legislation and I look forward to hearing testimony from the Department. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Minority Leader Carr. I look forward to the dialogue today and I would like to thank everyone on my team for their work on this legislation. We will start by... I also want to recognize CM Inna Vernikov, who has joined us, and recognize that CM Maloney is now with us in person. We will start by hearing testimony from DSNY. We will then turn it over to hear testimony from members of the public and I will now turn it over to our Committee counsel to administer the oath.
Great. Good morning, Chair Sanchez and members of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. I am Gregory Anderson, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Sanitation, and I am joined by John McDonnell, Deputy Commissioner for Solid Waste Management, and Frank Marshall, Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Commercial Waste. Thank you for the opportunity to testify in front of this Committee today.
Before I get into my prepared testimony, I just want to provide a few updates. There are a lot of exciting things happening in Sanitation. First, happy fiscal new year to everyone. We were very excited to see yesterday that the City Council passed Int 0031-2026, which would allow Sanitation to expand the commercial organics program to all food-related businesses, and we look forward to implementing that over the course of the next few months ahead of the December 1 deadline in the Bill. Second, we are very excited that the Council passed Int 0092-2026, sponsored by our dear friend CM Brewer, to allow us to use stickers to
alert the public of violators of alternate side parking, so we look forward to rolling that out in the coming months as well.
As it is July 1, we have exciting news around containerization. First, today is the first day of sign-ups and registration for Brooklyn Community District 2, so all businesses with 10 or more units in Brooklyn Community District 2 will be able to sign up to receive their Empire Bins. They are mandatory for buildings with 31 or more units, and they are optional for buildings with 10 to 30 units. They can choose either the Empire Bins or wheelie bins, whichever they prefer. They just have to let us know which they prefer. So we will start doing outreach today. We have teams out on the ground and I am heading over there shortly after this hearing to film a quick little video.
Secondly, on containerization, we are very excited to announce that we have published our draft environmental impact statement for the containerization program. This is something that the Department has worked on tirelessly for the last year plus. It is the result of an incredible amount of analysis and public engagement, and we really want to thank our team who worked on this as well as our partner agencies at the Mayor's Office of Environmental Coordination and others who have been part of this process. We will have a hearing on the final scope of work coming up soon.
Lastly, it is July 1 as I mentioned, which means that starting today, customers in the Midtown South and Staten Island commercial waste zones can sign up with one of their selected carters, and that sign-up period continues through August 31. We are also having outreach staff out there today. It will be limited for the next couple of days because of the heat wave, but starting next week we will be out there in full force.
So turning to the bills we have in front of us today. First, Int 0075-2026, sponsored by CM Nurse, would allow Sanitation to conduct cleanliness enforcement for commercial premises during all posted business hours or from 7 to 8 o'clock, 7 o'clock in the afternoon for businesses that do not have posted hours. We strongly support this legislation, which we think will improve the cleanliness of our commercial corridors. This addresses a longstanding limitation that restricts sidewalk enforcement to just one-hour periods per day, and for commercial properties this limitation can prevent us from performing effective enforcement for some of the worst actors, those individual businesses that can mar the appearance of an entire commercial corridor. This legislation would fix this historic wrong and allow for common sense and consistent enforcement during a business's posted operating hours. Our goal, to be clear, is never enforcement for enforcement's sake, nor is it for the sake of revenue for that matter. Our goal is and always will be to achieve compliance and cleanliness. We thank the Council for their action in the last few years to try to give us more tools in this area.
Our outreach and business engagement staff work closely with our partner agencies like our business improvement districts, chambers of commerce and other stakeholders to ensure that education remains our first tool to achieve compliance and to give New York City businesses the information and tools they need to comply with sanitation laws. All property owners have a responsibility to keep their sidewalks and their properties clean, and we are grateful to CM Nurse and Chair Sanchez for their leadership in advancing this important Bill.
Int 0353-2026, sponsored by CM Nurse, would require the creation of a commercial waste zones working group. There are a lot of words in my testimony on this. I will just skip to the end, which is we certainly welcome the opportunity to conduct additional engagement through a formalized working group and plan to advance a formalized working group whether or not this Bill moves, so we look forward to working with the Council to get that done.
For Int 0356-2026, again sponsored by CM Nurse, would require Sanitation to adopt rules to permit community composters to charge for the collection of organic waste at drop-off sites and to sell compost to the public. Rules currently do not prohibit this practice. Previous Sanitation contracts with certain community composters did prohibit programs funded by the City from charging for these services, but because those programs are no longer baseline funded in the administration's budget, these restrictions no longer apply. I think the takeaway here is we look forward to working with the Council to understand the intent of this legislation, but we do not think it is necessary at this time. Given that the Council has provided significant funding on the order of what was in the Schedule C posted yesterday, we do think that publicly funded programs need to balance access and equity with the financial sustainability of the organizations that are funded by the Council.
Int 0367-2026, sponsored by CM Nurse, would require Sanitation to accept commercial waste at our City's transfer stations. While we oppose the Bill as it is written, we have said previously and committed conceptually to the acceptance of commercial waste at our transfer stations in both the 2006 final and 2026 draft Solid Waste Management Plans, and the permits for these facilities do allow them to accept commercial waste today. As we said at the Solid Waste Management Plan hearing at the beginning of the year, we plan to begin this process after we finish the complete citywide implementation of commercial waste zones by the end of 2027, and we look forward to continuing these conversations as we approach that date next year.
Next, Int 0369-2026 would require Sanitation to establish one or more organic waste composting facilities in each borough with the capacity to process at least 100,000 wet tons to 180,000 wet tons of organic waste annually. While we appreciate the Council's interest in expanding processing capacity citywide, we do oppose the Bill's requirement for compost facilities in each borough with this capacity, given the significant regulatory, operational and fiscal realities that would make implementation impossible. We are happy to have further conversations with the Council about our efforts to expand composting capacity, but we do not think this Bill would be implementable.
Lastly, Proposed Int. No. 911-A, sponsored by CM Carr, would increase the number of carters in the Staten Island commercial waste zone from no more than three to a total of six and delay the implementation of such zone. Sanitation opposes this Bill as it would undermine the commercial waste zone program and its core benefits of decreased truck traffic, improved safety and strengthened consumer protections. We cannot support the disruption to this system in the midst of implementation, particularly as I mentioned previously with the Staten Island zone implementation starting this morning. Nor do we support depriving Staten Island residents and businesses from the clear benefits this program provides, which we have seen in the six zones already implemented. So thank you for the opportunity to testify today and I am now happy to answer your questions.
I will turn it over first to Minority Leader Carr to ask questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Chair. Commissioner, you mentioned containerization earlier. I just want to thank you again for extending both the funding and the grace period for individual compliance and righting a wrong of the previous administration and making sure folks have time to actually get the bin. So thank you again for that. I know you worked closely with the Chair and CM Moreno on getting that done. With respect to Proposed Int. No. 911-A, I think one of the things that I have been
concerned about is that there is no real attendant benefit for Staten Island because, again as I said in my statement, you are not resolving a problem that we had. It was a problem that existed in other boroughs. More importantly, I dispute the notion that whatever benefits come with the program are being disrupted by this legislation, because I am not actually seeking to change the standards by which additional awardees would be selected. So could you kind of describe what your concerns are from your perspective with what we are proposing here today?
Yes, so I would dispute the notion that there is no benefit to Staten Island from commercial waste zones. I think the benefits are many. While the truck traffic concern may not have been as great on Staten Island as it was in other places, I think there are very real concerns around safety for both workers and the public. There are very real concerns around the lack of compliance with commercial recycling requirements and commercial organics requirements, and I think very serious concerns around the kind of services that carters had been operating on Staten Island and across the five boroughs in the prior system. So commercial waste zones bring a number of benefits, not just reducing total truck traffic. The program parameters writ large, I think, bring a number of benefits to Staten Islanders. But if
there were new awardees...
they would have to comply with the requirements of the program.
They would have... if they were existing haulers already operating, they would now have to comply with the standards that need to be met for any commercial waste zone awardee. So I am struggling to understand how bringing additional folks into the system for consumers to choose would, you know, would undermine a lot of the additional requirements that they would have to meet. They would have to meet the same standards as any other.
So I do not think that there is really a diminishment in the benefits of the program. If anything, you are just bringing more folks into compliance who had not been before, and yet they continue to operate. Consumers continue to have more choices. I think there is no tradeoff here between the goals of the authors of the program and what I am trying to do here.
The challenge is that we have been working to implement this for seven years now. This Bill is getting a hearing on the day that the Staten Island zone is being implemented, a full two years plus after these contracts were awarded, a full six years after the program was released. And I think, just to be frank, it is a slippery slope once you start to make exceptions for certain parts of the City or certain carters in a program like this. I think our concern would be that others would stand up and say, well, what about me?
The commercial waste zone system was designed very carefully by the Council and the Sanitation Department over the course of many, many years in order to build a system that works. There are many places across the country, particularly in the South, in Florida and Texas, in Los Angeles, where businesses only get one choice for their hauler. We specifically said that is not acceptable. We want to give businesses choice. Today, businesses on Staten Island can choose any of those three carters that they want to provide their waste collection services, and 79% of businesses on Staten Island already used one of those three carters. So it is really only 21% of businesses on Staten Island that have to pick a new carter. We are confident that the existing carters that are out there today are able to provide very high quality, very low cost services for Staten Island businesses.
Well, 21% is a pretty substantial number of folks. I admit it is not a majority, but I think that is a large number of folks who are now looking for a new carter when they did not feel the need to choose one before.
Right. And I think that it is about whether or not I, or the Department, or anyone in government wants to substitute our judgment for the best carting service for a customer. I think the concern that I have is that it is going to end up harming businesses. I understand there are price controls, but I think ultimately at the end of the day we are taking away these choices from consumers and we are boxing out local businesses that have been serving these communities for some time.
I think that is why we are at this point, because we are on the precipice of implementation as you say, but there are still two months for folks to choose one of the new existing carters. So I do not think there is no time to turn things around and kind of take a pause and have a conversation about how we can minimize the negative, unintended consequences for a borough that I think you would admit is unique among the others. I think there are reasons for us to treat our borough differently, and I think that is one of the things we have been pushing for as a united delegation — to say Staten Island is different, each borough is different, and there is a way for us to justify rationally a different treatment for different places that avoids the "what about me" problem that you are describing.
I just think the fact that this Bill is being heard on the day that implementation is starting indicates that we have already invested a tremendous amount of effort and thought. The carters have invested a tremendous amount of their time and money into preparing for this program. And I think if that were something that Staten Islanders strongly felt two years ago, five years ago, seven years ago when this Bill was passed by the City Council, that would have been the appropriate time for that conversation.
Thank you. I would like to recognize Minority Leader Carl Wilson for your questions.
Thank you. One of the concerns that I have, separate and aside from the Staten Island issue, is that I know Staten Island had a carter that was bought out by another carter. Can you explain the process of how they were automatically awarded? They did not bid out that third carter slot that had been awarded. For the future, one of the concerns that I have is: does that sort of set a precedent that if you buy out any of the other carters, you automatically have a contract with the City? Could you just explain a little bit more on how that process came to be and, for the future, what that process will look like? I know we were in a bit of a situation as we were trying to get to today, but just understanding what that process can look like going forward and if there are any adjustments or amendments that could be made so that it does not look like all you have to do is buy somebody out and then you get a City contract.
Yeah, so we have actually seen a large amount of merger and acquisition activity in the commercial waste industry since Local Law 199 passed in 2019 and also since the awards were done in 2024. For example, the first zone that was implemented, the Queens Central zone, one of the awardees was purchased by another company, which was then purchased by Waste Connections. That award was then transferred to the other awardee. There is a due diligence and review process that Frank and his staff conduct to ensure that the purchasing company has the financial wherewithal to provide the service that we require, that they are able to meet all of
the standards and contractual requirements, and most importantly, the pricing does not change. So if one company merges with or acquires another, the pricing that was in that initial contract stands as the pricing they are required to honor. So it is not simply that you are buying the award. You are purchasing the company and the commitments that predecessor company had made. That is common across New York City contracts. We have situations where — and this has happened, for example, with our recycling vendor — in the time that I have worked at Sanitation, for the last 12 years or so, that vendor has gone through three different names and three different corporate ownership structures. That kind of thing happens in the corporate world and it happens with the entities that we, as the City, do business with quite regularly.
Or would it complicate things more? I think one of the frustrations that Staten Island businesses are feeling is that folks are saying, well, once that company is gone, why did we not get a chance to bid for it again? Because there are six different carters already in existence on the island. Why could they not throw their hat in the ring to try and get that slot now that this company is not doing it? Would you be open to amending the process so that if a carter cannot fulfill its commitments, we open up the process directly and folks get to bid if they want that contract? Or would that add a complicated layer to the process?
Yeah, I do not know that we would necessarily be able to implement rules like that. I think that the kinds of merger and acquisition activity that we have seen in the industry are actually a net positive for the industry, because we are seeing that well-capitalized companies that are able to invest in new technology, able to invest in cleaner trucks, able to invest in really advanced worker safety training, are making investments by purchasing other companies. I think that is exactly the kind of thing that we want to see in the industry for it to grow and develop and become more sophisticated compared to the industry of the old days, particularly when we started to study the industry.
There are places where, if two companies that are already given awards in the same zone merge together and there are no other eligible carters that respond, there would be an open slot. In that case, we will bid out that open slot. We are doing that right now in two zones, and I think responses came back a few weeks ago. We are in the process of evaluating those and we will have new awards in the future. Local Law 199 gives the Department pretty broad discretion on how to decide when and where to fill zones. We can either assign the zone contract to an existing carter, we can do a new bid, or we can go back to the list of carters that previously bid on the zone.
I think if you look at the original bids for the Staten Island zone, we had five carters bid on that zone. One of the five carters, who is sitting in the back row of this room, already had 15 zones, so they were not eligible under the language of the law. Of the other four carters, one of them was Priority. The other one was Century. Century bought Priority, so they would have been the next in line to get the zone anyway. So I think any way you want to slice it, we followed the appropriate procedure here and we are confident that Staten Island businesses will get the service they deserve.
Thank you. I would like to recognize that we have also been joined by Counsel Mr. Brown, and I would like to turn it over to CM Maloney for questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your testimony. I am glad to see Int 0075-2026 and your support, and I think exempting sanitation from business hours is a sensible solution. I wanted to ask about Int 0369-2026, where your testimony indicates that there are concerns around expanding capacity citywide. I wanted to know if you have data on the demand in each borough and whether there has been a study or inquiry into the demand and whether or not these organic waste composting facilities are needed in each
borough. Yes. So I think in general we support the Council's intent to expand compost capacity in New York City and in the surrounding metropolitan area. Composting is a very land-intensive activity, and CM Wilson has been out to our Staten Island compost facility with Jen and I, and that facility processes 40,000 wet tons per year. We are talking about a requirement for a facility that is almost five times that size in each borough. You could not find that space in Manhattan, or realistically in most of the other boroughs. So our opposition to the Bill is specifically around the requirement that we would have to site one in each borough.
I think we are open to conversations with the Council around where we should go directionally with composting. We are very excited that the administration has transferred some of the Rikers properties to DCAS. We are very excited to work with DCAS to see if we can actually construct a sizable composting facility there. So I think there is a lot of potential in this space, but the approach of this Bill was just not the right direction. Thank you for clarifying
your position. Back to the Chair. Thank you. CM Wilson, do you have any questions? Great. Second round.
Council Member, thank you, Chair. Commissioner, thank you for explaining the approach to the substitution with respect to the third award in the Staten Island zone. I think one of my concerns is not that the Department did anything inconsistent with the law. My problem is the way the law is structured. I think what you described still leaves me with concerns, because I think a new RFP would have been the most appropriate thing. Once you have done it this way, it actually incentivizes those who think they are in the queue to be substituted in for a carter if they are able to do a buyout. The structure of the law is now creating conversations that would not have happened otherwise.
I think that when you have an acquisition that comes in the middle of an award period, that is a very different thing to assess than what we were looking at, where this conversation was happening in advance of the effect. So I still think that there should be a protocol that requires the Department, in advance of the implementation of a zone or moving forward in advance of a new award, whenever that day comes, to address a situation where there is going to be a potential sale or where an awardee is not going to be activating their award and serving. I think that gives an opportunity for the Department to refresh the list of people or companies that are potentially available to execute that award if they get selected.
I appreciate the point you are making, but we followed the letter of Local Law 199 in this process, and I fundamentally disagree with that kind of approach. I think acquisition happens in these kinds of industries and it is not something for us to necessarily shy away from.
You said the local law gives the agency broad discretion. Do you believe it gives you the discretion to choose to do a new RFP in these circumstances, if you wanted to?
For appropriate situations where we have had open awards, we have done new RFPs in other areas. So yes.
So in the case of a potential acquisition, you could do another RFP without any amendment to the local
law, particularly if we denied the contract assignment, or if the selected awardee were to pull out of the zone for some reason. The situation here was that an existing carter was prepared to start offering the service with the other carter as a designated carter, which is also allowed for under the law. The acquisition simply inverted those two parties, and the carter that was going to be the sub became the prime. So from our perspective it was not a tremendous change. But with respect to the purchase, do you still maintain discretion? Yes, we do retain discretion as a Department, but the discretion is subject to some parameters around having a rational basis for whatever direction we
go. Yeah, I think the way the law is structured it is not leaving you with sufficient options, because I think this is just creating some bad incentives on the industry side for folks who made a bid, did not get in, and see an opportunity to get in because they know they can game it out. Much like in the situation you described, one of the carters was not eligible because they had already gotten enough zones under the law, and they see an opportunity to move up. I think we have to seek to address that moving forward.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So I want to talk briefly about Int 0369-2026. On average, what is the distance that organic waste must travel from New York City residents before it is anaerobically digested, and can you describe each of the waste transfers involved in that travel?
Sure. I will start off and then hand it over to Deputy Commissioner McDonald to talk about all of the specific facilities that we use. In general, waste does not actually travel that far to be either composted or processed through anaerobic digestion. We have a number of facilities in New York City that receive that material. We have facilities in New Jersey that receive that material, and then they are transferring it on to generally either the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant or a wastewater treatment plant that co-digests the material in New Jersey. So Jen can speak to the specifics of that.
Yes. Thank you, Commissioner and Chair. The Department issued a procurement in 2023 to secure additional capacity for the receipt, processing and beneficial use of all the organics collected by DSNY and also those generated by agencies and institutions that we collaborate with, such as schools and parks. As a result of that procurement we awarded eight contracts. Seven of those contracts have been activated and they are associated with a variety of transfer stations located throughout the City, so that does minimize the travel distance. Once the trucks collect the organic material, it goes to a transfer station. Of those eight locations, seven are transfer stations and one is the Staten Island compost facility that we have spoken about today. We have direct deliveries of collected material from Staten Island and South Brooklyn that go to that facility.
Overall citywide, we have a robust network of locations that minimizes the distance that trucks have to travel after collecting organics. Once the material is received at the transfer stations, it is sometimes separated by subtype. For example, we have a very convenient program whereby we collect food waste and yard waste together at the curb. At some of the transfer stations they separate the material into piles of yard waste and food waste so that they can process them differentially. Sometimes the woody yard waste will go to composting and the organics, the wetter, heavier food waste, to co-digestion. So it really depends on the transfer station, and then from there it will go to composting facilities and or digesters for the beneficial use processing part of the resource recovery pathway.
Awesome. Thank you for that. Speaking about transportation, we are going to turn over to Int 0367-2026. Has the department received requests from carters to use the department's marine transfer stations or rail transfer stations? If so, which partners have made this request and which facilities were they interested in?
We have not received a request, but when we did the RFP for the commercial waste zones and awards, we did ask carters to indicate if they would be interested in using our transfer stations. Some of them did indicate interest, particularly those that will eventually service the Upper East Side zone. I think there were some of those and some of the other zones in upper Manhattan. So certainly once we have completed implementation, we will reach out to those haulers.
How many City-owned and operated rail transfer stations are there in New York City? Just the one, this one centered...
Which is not currently permitted for...
Commercial waste, so we would have to do a modification. Okay, cool. How would the department's enforcement resource needs change if this Bill were to be enacted?
Yes. So I do not think our enforcement resource needs would change, but we would be able to use those resources more effectively in order to conduct that enforcement. I think one of the examples that gets talked about a lot is...
You can have an area where the two one-hour periods are different district by district. You could have a district where one of the commercial rounding hours is 10 AM to 11 AM, but a business is not open — let us say they are a bar or something like that that does not open till noon or later. That means that during that 10 to 11 AM window, we cannot even write them a ticket because they are not open. So what this would allow us to do is go to that business anytime they are open, observe the condition and then issue a violation. So we would be able to...
Use our existing enforcement resources more effectively.
Okay, no further questions. I want to thank you all for your time and I think we can open it up for public testimony. Great. Thank you. Stay cool and enjoy the weekend of summer.
Do I have to check in? You have to check in for Tony to check in, presuming you want to change years. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh hey. Okay.
I now open the hearing for public testimony. I remind all members of the public that this is a government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. That includes no singing on Zoom. Thank you. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public shall not present audio or video recordings as testimony but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the Sergeant at Arms or include them in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the Sergeant at Arms and wait to be recognized.
When recognized, you will have two minutes to speak on the legislation on our agenda today. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the Sergeant at Arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony at council dot nyc dot gov within 72 hours of this hearing. Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. I will now call the first panel. Can I please have Josh Arraf, Justin — also known as Justin number one — and Joyce Yelich.
How are you? Maybe go again.
Thank you. Good morning. My name is Josh Sherif and I serve as Vice President for New York City at Action Environmental Services, a subsidiary of Interstate Waste. Thank you for the opportunity to deliver testimony regarding the Bills considered during today's hearing.
With respect to Int 0367-2026 and Int 0369-2026, Action Environmental supports reasonable legislation that encourages street cleanliness, expands access to composting and promotes economically feasible disposal options. Action is poised to support commercial businesses with relevant compliance education in alignment with the progression of these Bills. Furthermore, Action Environmental staunchly supports Int 0353-2026, introduced by CM Nurse. The creation of a commercial waste zones working group would structure a healthy dialogue amongst critical stakeholders who are responsible for the successful realization of Local Law 199's key objectives. Awarded carters have engaged with the City successfully on zones. However, there are limited opportunities to provide or absorb more holistic feedback amongst industry colleagues. This working group would be a productive forum to discuss customer experiences transitioning to the zones, operational best practices and technologies that prioritize safety, and opportunities for efficiency improvements within an evolving regulatory landscape.
In contrast, Action Environmental staunchly opposes the adoption of Proposed Int. No. 911-A, which would unnecessarily alter the operating framework and timely implementation of the zones program. This Bill undermines Local Law 199's intended goals by diluting the required caliber of haulers and neglecting the City's ability to course-correct underperforming zones. Staten Island's residents and businesses deserve to benefit from reduced truck traffic, vigilant safety standards and transparency in the same regard as other boroughs. Therefore, Action Environmental encourages this Committee to avoid establishing a harmful precedent by disrupting the program's potential before the zone even launches. Thank you.
For your time. Thank you, Josh.
Good morning, Chair. My name is Joyce Yelich and I am a member of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board. I am here today to suggest how the City's support of composting can also support one of the values of the Mayor's grocery stores initiative — namely making healthy foods accessible to low-income residents.
Many of the farms and gardens currently in our City do their own composting and use the compost to grow fruits and vegetables. If clean, wholesome food scraps are used to make clean compost, we get clean, wholesome, nutritious fruits and vegetables. Studies have shown that some of the chemicals found in produce not grown organically are forever chemicals, and that small children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable.
Currently the City's farms and gardens are not distributed evenly across the City. Are they selling their produce directly to the public or using some of their land to increase compost and create compost? The City could build a system that maps the current distribution of these farms and community gardens and subsidizes the development of additional growing and composting facilities wherever possible in areas where they are lacking. The City also should guarantee ongoing support for the compost facilities that currently exist. Priority for the farms, gardens and compost facilities would be given to low-income neighborhoods, and the City would develop a means for each customer to pay directly to the farm or garden at a rate commensurate to that used in the City grocery stores. The City would monitor the growing and selling to ensure the availability of healthy, affordable products that are grown only with contamination-free compost from clean, wholesome food scraps.
Thank you. Thanks so much. Good morning, Chair Justin.
Thank you so much for holding this hearing, and congratulations to you and Majority Leader Abreu and the Council on the passage of Int 0031-2026 last night. We strongly support that and, of course, on the passage of a robust City budget.
My name is Justin Wood, Deputy Director of Policy at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and we are a member of Transforming Don't Trash New York City. As another summer of extreme heat descends on us, the federal government continues an assault on renewable energy, climate science, public health and the very concept of environmental justice. So it is in that context that we offer strong support for Int 0369-2026, introduced by CM Nurse, and Int 0367-2026. To accept commercial waste at marine and rail facilities owned by the City is a major and decades-old priority for environmental justice communities that continue to bear the pollution and safety burdens of unjustly sited concentrations of waste transfer stations based on trucks in outer borough communities. These facilities were designed at their inception to accept commercial waste. The 2006 Solid Waste Management Plan's environmental impact study explicitly proposed that they be used for this and found there would be minimal impacts on surrounding communities. We will submit more detailed testimony, but we strongly support that Bill and any underlying studies that DSNY needs to conduct to arrive at any subsidy or price that would be necessary to induce commercial haulers to use these facilities.
We similarly strongly support Int 0369-2026, requiring the City to operate at least one major aerobic composting facility in each borough, building on the successful expansion of the Fresh Kills facility we heard about today. With the passage of Int 0031-2026 and the long-awaited implementation and enforcement of commercial and residential recycling rules, now is the time to begin planning to process far more organic waste locally and produce rich soil fertilizer for our parks, farms and gardens.
Finally, we strongly oppose Proposed Int. No. 911-A, which would retroactively delay and undermine implementation in Staten Island. Simply put, Staten Islanders — and I happen to be a resident of the borough — residents, sanitation workers and businesses deserve the immediate benefits of the system that was studied, debated and legislated almost a decade ago: safer streets, cleaner air, recycling, composting, food donation services and an affordable price structure that ensures Staten Island businesses can save money by diverting more waste from landfills. These are all good things. I would just add that if this Bill were to pass, we would be concerned that the City would be subject almost certainly to litigation by the haulers that have already been awarded these zones, as implementation began today. We would urge the Council not to disrupt the good things that are happening. Our partners in organized labor at the Teamsters, for example, have been able to organize substantial numbers of workers in this historically dangerous and exploitative industry. So thank you very much.
Thanks so much. With that, this first panel is relieved. Thank you so much. Now I would like to bring up Eric Goldstein, Rhonda Keyser and Jameer Rush. I hope I said that right.
We can do it. Maybe go again. Good...
Good morning. Thank you for this hearing. Eric Goldstein from the Natural Resources Defense Council. I will summarize a written testimony in which we strongly support Int 0369-2026. The issue of compost processing capacity could be the most important issue to come before this Committee this year. This could be a legacy issue for you. Here is why: composting addresses the single largest portion of the waste stream. A third of our waste is food scraps, yard waste, food-soiled paper. If it goes to landfills, it creates methane. If it goes to incinerators, its high moisture content fouls up the...
Burning process and generates localized pollution. If it goes to the sewage treatment plants for co-digestion, while that is better than landfilling and incineration, mixing it with sewage sludge means that you cannot compost the digestate, and so it is not the highest and best use for compostable material.
We definitely need more capacity for composting in the City, which also brings jobs and could save money in our exporting costs over time. We want to work with CM Nurse to get this Bill in shape where it can be enacted. We do say that it is hard to find a more important issue for the long-term sustainability of our system than to address the issue of getting additional composting capacity in the City very quickly.
We also strongly support Int 0367-2026. This is an environmental justice issue that has lingered for years. Three communities get the overwhelming bulk of commercial waste. Opening up the modern marine transfer stations and the City's own rail facilities to commercial waste could alleviate that burden. We know that Commissioner Anderson has the expertise, the staff and the authority to get this work done if he is authorized to do so by the Council.
Finally, we strongly oppose Proposed Int. No. 911-A. This Bill would directly run counter to the intent of the Council when it passed the waste zone legislation. It was debated for years. In fact, only one of the three Staten Island Council members voted against this legislation. So in other words, they had the opportunity to oppose it and chose to support the program. The program is ongoing now and it would also set a horrible precedent to exempt an entire borough from citywide legislation. So we urge that that Bill be sent to the landfills.
Last but not least, we also strongly support Int 0356-2026, allowing community composting operations to charge for organic waste drop-offs. We explain why in our testimony. Thank you for your...
Attention. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Jameer Rush and I work with Cafeteria Culture. I urge you to pass Int 0369-2026, which requires compost processing capacity in every borough of New York City.
Cafeteria Culture launched a pilot program that shows what local composting can accomplish. I was hired as a compost coordinator to collect cafeteria food, educate students about composting and transport those scraps to nearby community composting sites or on-site composting. Since late October 2024, I have led students to divert more than one ton of food scraps from just four schools. Thank you. Every pound of compost we use in the school gardens we created at the schools comes from local composting sites. So instead of trucking our food waste across the City and burdening other communities, we have turned food scraps into a local resource that nourishes our gardens, supports environmental education and strengthens our neighborhoods.
This is exactly why Int 0369-2026 matters. Local composting reduces unnecessary truck traffic, builds resilient neighborhood infrastructure and creates opportunities for education, jobs and community engagement. Our pilot proves that integrating school cafeterias into neighborhood composting is practical, efficient and scalable. Just one compost coordinator working with four schools diverted more than a ton of organic matter in a matter of months. Imagine what every school in every borough could achieve with the right infrastructure. We ask you to please pass Int 0369-2026 and invest in a composting system that keeps resources where they are generated and benefits every New York City community. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, I am Rhonda Kaiser. I am Program and Policy Director for Cafeteria Culture. Our team works together with Rush to evaluate and shape the food scraps collection pilot. One of the biggest lessons from our pilot is how efficient it is to collect food scraps from schools. We realize that our opinion differs from Eric's about whether Int 0369-2026 is possible, but it is a new idea and new ideas require conversational generosity. That is what we are hoping to engage in and that is what we are hoping to receive.
In just four schools, one compost coordinator diverted more than a ton of food scraps in only a few months. Reaching that same number of individuals by asking individual households to separate and set out their food scraps would require educating and engaging hundreds if not thousands of families. Schools generate large, consistent volumes of food scraps every day, making them the easiest and most efficient places to recover organics. By integrating schools into a neighborhood composting system, students learn how and they learn why — and actually how — to divert their food scraps through hands-on education. While teaching them about recycling programs and the virtue of separating their waste is a great idea, actually giving them the value of the benefit of their so-called waste — but actually resources — they actually feel the difference. It is palpable what students can understand about it.
I have said this many times, but our students from PS 46 visited Polo Grounds and they looked around and they said to Domingo, "Do you own this site?" He said, "This is funded by taxes, so technically we all own this site." The kids seemed to think that they owned a site where they could actually make a difference — and make a huge difference. These are students, some of our most vulnerable students, who could make a huge difference where the brown bin program does not exist. Our program disrupts the truck-based, harmful and polluting industrial model and it offers a new solution. Another world is possible. Thank you.
Thank you. With that, this panel is relieved. Thanks so much. Can I please bring up Mary Ellen Sullivan, Matthew Fellow and Wendy Frank?
Good morning. I am Mary Sullivan. The Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens Solid Waste Advisory Boards strongly support local composting capacity in each of the five boroughs. Int 0369-2026 provides a clear and practical framework for developing a resilient, equitable and locally based organics processing infrastructure, consistent with the SWABs' ongoing recommendation that New York City should prioritize local composting. New York City residents and commercial businesses generate almost 2 million tons of organic material annually, with the vast majority of this being sent to landfills, incinerators or co-digestion facilities. New York City is losing out on an opportunity to turn our organic waste into something valuable: new jobs, additional tax revenue, reduced harm and locally made compost to apply in our parks and neighborhoods.
Co-digesting organics with sewage creates more sewage sludge, a waste that is difficult and expensive to dispose of. Current policy is to maximize beneficial use of biosolids. That means land application. Yet municipalities across New York State and the entire country are waking up to the shock of land polluted by biosolids and they are beginning to oppose this practice and take action. The policy of our own New York Farm Bureau is to stand in opposition to land application of biosolids that have detectable levels of PFAS and heavy metals. The solution is obvious: compost our waste organically. To strengthen Int 0369-2026, we respectfully recommend the following modifications: reestablish the compost siting task force so that section two B of Int 0369-2026 can be
realized. Explicitly include and prioritize nonprofit organizations, including but not limited to the New York City Compost Network, as eligible entities to participate in this activity. Ensure that facility siting decisions incorporate environmental justice considerations and avoid the environmental justice errors of our current waste system. Integrate robust public education into the rollout and integrate workforce development programs into this as well. Thank you.
Good morning. I am Matthew Solo, Chair of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, and I thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony at today's hearing. The Solid Waste Advisory Boards support Int 0367-2026, which would require the Department of Sanitation to accept commercial solid waste at City-owned marine and rail transfer stations and publicly report the amount and type of waste received. Implemented carefully, Int 0367-2026 could significantly reduce waste transfer burdens and truck traffic in overburdened communities of Brooklyn Community District 1, Queens Community District 12, Bronx Community Districts 1 and 2. Int 0367-2026 builds directly on Local Law 199 of 2019, the Waste Equity Law, enacted to reduce the disproportionate impacts of truck traffic and waste processing on environmental justice communities, and with the hope of preventing new neighborhoods from becoming the next dumping grounds. Int 0367-2026 could now help provide meaningful relief to those communities that have carried those burdens for decades.
Before this Committee in 2023, the Department of Sanitation stated that it had asked commercial waste zone proposers whether they were interested in using the City's marine transfer stations and that the process would help determine that demand. We respectfully request that those findings be made public, along with a public evaluation of the feasibility and benefits of accepting commercial waste at these facilities. A better utilization of the City's marine and rail transfer stations, as suggested by Int 0367-2026, can improve the distribution of commercial waste across the City of New York, reduce truck traffic in historically overburdened neighborhoods and help fulfill the promise of the Waste Equity Law. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
Thank you so much for your testimony.
Hi there. Wendy Frank from the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board. The Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens Solid Waste Advisory Boards support both Int 0356-2026 and Int 0353-2026 and commend the Council for advancing these important measures. Int 0356-2026 would provide community composters with a more sustainable and diversified funding model by allowing them to charge for food scrap collections and sell the compost they produce.
The SWABs recommend expanding the Bill to also allow community composters to charge local entities for food scrap pickup and drop-off services. This additional flexibility would strengthen the long-term financial sustainability of community compost programs across New York City. The SWABs also support Int 0353-2026, establishing a commercial waste zone working group with representation from the waste industry, labor, environmental organizations, environmental justice advocates, carters and micro-haulers. This diverse membership will ensure that commercial waste zones achieve the objectives established under Local Law 199 of 2019. We recommend the working group issue an annual public report evaluating the implementation of commercial waste zones, including their impacts on truck traffic, emissions, public and worker safety and other key performance measures. At the conclusion of its work, the group should also issue recommendations for improving the program.
Finally, we recommend adding commercial waste zone customers to the working group and providing opportunities for Solid Waste Advisory Boards and other stakeholders to observe meetings. Greater transparency and broader participation will strengthen both the working group and the successful implementation of commercial waste zones. Thank you for your consideration. And you may remember me from the last hearing when I informed you about bananas. When you have a large City-wide event with over 40,000 people and you do not compost those bananas, it is bananas. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your testimony. This panel is relieved. For our next and last panel, can I please have Domingo Morales, Justin Green and... Thank you. Domingo, you can begin.
Thank you for having me. I am Domingo Morales from Compost Power. We operate compost sites on public housing campuses throughout the City and I am here to support Int 0369-2026. I think it would behoove New York City to have more local composting. I think the seven transfer stations that we do have — it is like a double route where we have to take it to a transfer station, liquefy it into a liquid form and then take it to a water treatment plant, and it just doubles the amount of trucking that we need. Also, there are a lot of biosolids that end up in landfills anyway.
I think with the compost sites that we have in New York City, we are able to keep a hyper-local model. On public housing campuses, we are able to collect the waste on campus, process it on campus, distribute the compost on campus, grow free food for residents, provide environmental education for young adults as well as the kids who attend local schools in the community, and in some cases seniors are coming out to sift through finished compost and use that finished compost on their gardening efforts. I think public housing has the second largest tree canopy in New York City, so it is beneficial to have local processing sites on public housing.
I think with Int 0369-2026, the Department of Sanitation cannot do it by themselves, so they will need to tap into other community composting support networks. They will need to partner with the New York City Housing Authority. They will need to partner with the Parks Department in order to get the space to build the composting sites that we need, to provide a more holistic approach to organic waste in New York City and to provide more of a community-based approach. So I am in support of that Bill. I also think Int 0356-2026 — we are in support of that as well, because those are rules that were in place when the Department of Sanitation controlled the New York City Compost Project. They no longer fund the New York City Compost Project. We now have the New York City Community Compost Network, which is funded by City Council, and I think if we allow people to explore different options for funding, we will be able to make community composting a little bit more sustainable. Thank you so much.
I am Justin Green. I am the Executive Director of Big Reuse. Thanks for having us all here to testify. I second pretty much everything Domingo said. Both of us have been composting in New York City for a while now and we can see the capacity that is available in the City to grow green infrastructure and to increase composting capacity throughout the City. Similar to what Domingo has piloted and been running for years in parks, we are working with Central Park to set up a site — we have a site operating in Central Park now to compost all their landscaping waste. We can expand that to other parks. Both of us work in community gardens, helping them maximize their composting. There are large-scale brownfield sites in northern Astoria and East Williamsburg that are huge brownfield sites that are not great for building residential because of their brownfield nature, but could be used for green infrastructure projects like this. There are examples of these kinds of
large-scale capacity systems being installed in buildings and enclosed, so there are no odor issues going to the outside community. So it is possible. If we can dream big, we can make this happen in the City, reduce our impact on other communities from exporting our waste and reduce our reliance on anaerobic digestion, which, as a lot of speakers have talked about, produces unusable biosolids at this point — and not the compost that we all thought would be produced through all of our work. The biosolids are contaminated with everything that goes down into the sewer: PFAS, microplastics, anything else everyone pours down the drain in the City ends up in our biosolids at the sewage treatment plants. So it is not particularly usable, but compost is. With growing resiliency needs in the City, compost provides greater water absorption, greater plant growth and other green infrastructure improvements, and I think we could do it. Thanks.
And what a better way to end our day. Thank you so much. Good morning, Chair, and thank you for holding this hearing. My name is Erin Wright and I am here representing Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. He appreciates your ongoing attention to the rollout of commercial waste zones, a program he created during his time in your position. When fully implemented, this program will address issues with the private carting industry by limiting vehicle miles traveled, increasing enforcement of dangerous driving, incentivizing the replacement of out-of-date fleets, requiring more attention to worker safety and increasing diversion of waste from landfills.
Despite unfortunate delays and our continued calls to speed up the program's rollout, the Borough President has been pleased with its implementation so far. Initial information indicates that increased enforcement in the active zones is leading to improved safety outcomes, that more workers now have union protection and that the program has not caused costs to rise dramatically as some have predicted.
I am here to provide comments on the three Bills being heard today, really in relation to Int 0369-2026. First, Int 0353-2026 would create a working group. The Council has been considering this Bill for many years and it is time to finally pass it. Having experts at the table from both within and outside the industry can only help guide the process and ensure its continued success. Int 0367-2026 would require DSNY to establish a plan for accepting commercial waste at the marine transfer stations. Reynoso originally introduced this Bill when he was at City Council and unfortunately DSNY continues to slow-roll this necessary measure, which would remove dangerous and polluting waste trucks from our streets. Thanks to advocacy by the environmental justice community, marine transfer stations remove waste by barge and rail rather than long-haul truck. This Bill would push DSNY to create a clear plan that would support our environmental justice communities and we urge the Council to pass it quickly.
Proposed Int. No. 911-A would allow a number of carters to participate in Staten Island. Reynoso has concerns about this proposal citywide. Further comments are provided in writing, along with a copy of our report on the Bill. Thank you.
I just want to show everyone what experience looks like.
We really thank you for all your testimony and your reports, and Brooklyn Borough President Reynoso for all of his work on this issue and the work that he will continue to do. Thank you. And with that, this panel is dismissed.
And we thought we were done. We are not done.
They have joined us on Zoom from the ether. Lou, can you hear us?
Yes, I can hear everyone. Good afternoon, Chair Sanchez and members of the Committee. My name is Luna Buche, Vice President for the Northeast Region from the National Waste and Recycling Association. We represent the private companies that collect and manage commercial waste and recyclables throughout New York City. Our members will serve customers in 19 of the City's 20 commercial waste zones when fully implemented. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on Int 0353-2026, Int 0367-2026 and Proposed Int. No. 911-A.
First, our association strongly supports Int 0353-2026, which establishes a commercial waste zone working group. Two years ago, I testified before this Committee in support of creating a formal stakeholder working group because we believed a program as large and complex as this would require ongoing collaboration. As implementation has progressed, that has proved to be exactly the case. This program is unlike anything else in the country. While there have been challenges, our industry remains fully committed to making it successful. Our members have invested millions of dollars in new equipment, facilities, employees and infrastructure to help achieve the City's goals of improving safety, reducing traffic, lowering emissions and providing reliable services. A permanent working group will allow the waste industry, labor, elected officials and other stakeholders to identify challenges early and develop practical solutions together and continue improving the program over time. We respectfully urge the Committee to approve Int 0353-2026.
Regarding Int 0367-2026 and responsible transportation options, including greater use of marine and rail — those are goals we share. However, we have serious concerns if participation becomes mandatory. During the bid process, companies negotiated disposal agreements, invested in infrastructure and established customer pricing based on the rules that existed at the time. We have submitted written comments, so you will have the chance to read those there.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. Thank you so much. Are there any other takers for comments at this time? Going once, going twice. Hearing none. Happy summer, everyone. I will see you soon.