The New York City Department of Sanitation Has Expanded Residential Pick-Up for Organic Waste in Manhattan.
Your residential pick-up for organic waste begins with a request – enroll at http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/dsny/site/contact/organics-collection-application. Any building with 9 or more units can apply. Then a DSNY representative will visit and assess the needs of your building; where do you store your building’s waste, how much volume you are likely to have, who is the person in charge of regular building maintenance and come up with a workable plan. There are even containers you can use in your own kitchen to collect the organics you’ll eventually deposit in your building’s 21-gallon brown bin (with lock-tight cover and wheels to make it easier to bring to the curb on collection day).
Residential pick-up for organic waste is the Department of Sanitation’s curbside recycling service for food scraps, food-soiled paper, yard waste and now, even fish and meat scraps! Just like traditional recycling of paper, cardboard, metal, glass and plastic, residents separate these items and put them in brown bins that DSNY provides. You can even make your deposits in your building’s bin in plastic. The City’s new organics processors will sort plastic out. These organics are collected weekly, sometimes more often, and turned into compost and clean energy. Set out your organics bin after 4 PM the night before your scheduled collection day. Return empty bins to your property after collection.
As reported in the NY Times:
New Yorkers already have blue and green bins for recycling glass, metal, paper and plastic. But now brown bins for organic waste are starting to appear all over the city. These plastic totems are part of the city’s multimillion-dollar campaign to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on landfills, and to turn food scraps and yard waste into compost and, soon, clean energy.
Additionally, sorting out organics from your traditional trash bags reduces rodent infestation. The Brown Bins are rodent-proof, in your building and on the street.
This is a no-brainer, NoHo. Get with the program.