Initial Work Plan

Submitted November 17, 2006

Council on the Environment New York City (CENYC)
51 Chambers Street, Suite 228
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 212-788-7900
Fax: 212-788-7913
www.cenyc.org

I. Introduction

Last July, the City Council passed the Mayor's landmark Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP). The SWMP will drastically improve the way the City has exported solid waste since the closing of the Fresh Kills Landfill in 2001, including: a substantial reduction in the environmental impacts associated with shipping solid waste by truck, the adoption and enforcement of borough self sufficiency in the handling of the City's solid waste and a renewed emphasis on recycling and waste reduction.

The SWMP includes ambitious but realistic goals to increase the amount of recyclable materials diverted from the waste stream. By 2007, the goal is to meet a 25% diversion rate for curbside and containerized waste generated by residents and institutions, and a 35% diversion goal for the total DSNY-managed waste stream. For the long term, the SWMP sets a 70% (combined Commercial and DSNY-managed waste) diversion goal to be reached by 2015.

To reach these goals, the city will contract to build a modern recycling sorting facility in Brooklyn, create pilot programs to place recycling receptacles in parks and transportation facilities, expand yard waste collection, develop electronic recycling initiatives, and create a new Office of Recycling Outreach and Education (OROE) within Council on the Environment New York City (CENYC).

II. OROE Overview

Over the last 18 years, the City has made great strides in recycling, increasing the diversion rate from single digits in 1989 when the Program became law, to around 17% today. But to meet the ambitious diversion targets in the SWMP, the City's recycling efforts must be reinvigorated and substantially increased. OROE will help to achieve these goals by focusing on waste prevention, composting and recycling outreach and education.[1]

The City's renewed focus on recycling outreach and education could not come at a more critical time. The rising costs associated with exporting solid waste make a robust outreach and education program extremely important. OROE is required to present to the Commissioner of the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) and the City Council this proposed work plan and the attached budget[2] within 3 months of the approval of the SWMP. In addition, in February 2007, OROE will present the first of its annual reports to the City Council making recommendations regarding additional programs or practices, if any, that it determines are needed or would be useful in improving waste reduction, reuse, or recycling. In short, through OROE, the SWMP provides an important means to achieve, in cooperation with DSNY, the ambitious but achievable recycling targets set in the SWMP.

The SWMP provides that CENYC will hire a citywide Director and one Recycling Outreach Coordinator (ROC) for each borough, for a total of six staff. CENYC is currently interviewing director candidates and expects OROE to be fully staffed within 8 to 10 weeks. OROE's staff will work with DSNY to increase the percentage of recyclables diverted from the waste stream and to promote waste reduction, reuse and composting. The offices primary focus will be to train and educate building service personnel and occupants on the methods, requirements and importance of recycling paper and metal, glass, and plastics (MGP). OROE will also provide information and training on other waste reduction and reuse programs offered by the City and various not-for-profit organizations.

The OROE Director will act as a liaison to city agencies, civic organizations, cultural institutions, not-for-profits, businesses, real estate associations and others. The Director will work to promote DSNY's recycling and waste reduction programs throughout the city. The Director will also help ensure that the importance of recycling and waste reduction receive proper media attention and remain an integral part of the City's overall sustainability efforts.

In addition to the annual reports OROE is required to present under the SWMP, the director will report regularly to the Deputy Mayor for Administration on the progress of the City's efforts to meet the diversion goals in the SWMP, and OROE's contributions to and recommendations for meeting those goals.

III. OROE Work Plan

OROE training and outreach will be organized on a Community District (CD) basis; OROE staff will create Outreach Plans (OPs) for each CD focusing on the recyclable materials that have the greatest potential for increased diversion as indicated in the City's waste composition studies and in consultation with DSNY. Information provided by DSNY, Department of City Planning and other agencies will be used to develop each Outreach Plan. The OROE Director will ensure that Outreach Plans are implemented in a cohesive manner in all five boroughs. In addition, OROE will, as feasible, work with schools, public hospitals, and other public facilities that contribute to the City's waste stream to improve recycling, waste reduction, and composting knowledge and practices at these facilities. This work will enhance DSNY's current education programs at these sites, and will focus on larger producers of solid waste. Outreach to community facilities will, however, only be a minor part of OROE's overall work plan.

As described below, this work plan focuses on apartment complexes, other multi-family residences and single-family residences and will be implemented in three phases: Planning, Implementation, and Follow-up.

A. Planning

OROE staff, in consultation with DSNY, will identify which recyclable materials are not being diverted at an appropriate rate. OROE's work will commence with a comprehensive review of DSNY's market research, polling and waste composition data, including the soon-to-be-completed Waste Characterization Study undertaken pursuant to the SWMP.[3] Because OROE's outreach plan will operate on a community-district-by-community-district basis, staff will review and use the Community District profiles prepared by the Department of City Planning and other resources to do basic community mapping and to develop working profiles of the unique communities OROE will serve.

Through this process OROE (i) will better understand community attitudes toward current recycling rules and programsincluding the real and perceived limitations that particular communities may face in reaching the diversion goals in the SWMP; and (ii) will lay the groundwork for a focused outreach plan. During the planning stage, OROE staff will also identify specific residences and public buildings that should be contacted during the outreach and follow-up phases and will build a database of elected officials, community leaders, block associations and other community groups that can be called upon to help promote recycling and waste reduction in their particular communities.

OROE will develop a model recycling tool kit that staff (and, with training, community groups and volunteers) will use to work with the targeted residential buildings. The tool kit will be translated into multiple languages to serve the City's unique and culturally diverse neighborhoods (much like the Ready New York campaign used by the Office of Emergency Management). Moreover, the tool kits will be adapted for outreach to single family homes and multi-family residences and, at a minimum, will include the following information:

Apartment Buildings[4] (Owners and Building Service Personnel)

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Proper handling of household hazardous waste
• Yard waste, electronics, and clothing diversion options
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Awards and incentive programs

Single Family Homes & Tenants

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Proper handling and disposal of household hazardous waste
• Yard waste, electronics, and clothing diversion options
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Incentive and award programs
• Waste reduction techniques
• Tenant volunteer opportunities

After compiling background information on the community and developing a community-district-by-community-district action plan and recycling tool kit, OROE staff will move to the implementation stage.

B. Implementation

Based on information gathered during the planning phase, OROE Recycling Coordinators will work with residential building managers, janitors, tenants and home owners to improve the diversion rates of recyclable materials. The educational focus will differ from CD to CD depending on waste composition data, recycling rates and a review of the current recycling practices in particular buildings and neighborhoods. Overall, OROE's educational efforts will focus on increasing the diversion rate of paper, metal, glass, and plastics, and removing organic waste from the waste stream.

1. Apartment buildings

OROE Recycling Outreach Coordinators will contact the owners and service personnel at a particular multi-family building to set up an initial consultation and offer to conduct a review of the buildings infrastructure and recycling practices. Coordinators will also make an effort to determine the volume of recyclables being separated and the staffs perception of the current level of recycling. When the review is completed, the Coordinators will make a determination if further outreach and education efforts are necessary. If they are, the ROC will meet with owners, staff, and tenants to implement new procedures and practices so that the recycling diversion rates can be increased. Training and information will be provided in the following areas:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19 (how to avoid fines)
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Handling household hazardous waste
• Yard waste, electronics, and clothing diversion options
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Disposal of bulk items
• Incentive and award programs

In addition, ROCs will distribute information to building residents highlighting the following points:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Handling household hazardous waste
• Yard waste, electronics, and clothing diversion options
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Incentive and award programs[5]
• Tenant volunteer opportunities

Recycling Coordinators may also attend tenant association or co-op/condo board meetings to provide additional training and information, answer questions, and to recruit tenant volunteers. Meetings will also allow ROC to hear any concerns tenants have with the recycling practices at the building so that this information can be shared with building service personnel.

(a) Volunteer Recycling Outreach Coordinators

Studies have shown that residents are more likely to recycle if their fellow tenants do so. Recognizing this, DSNY will soon launch a website that will enable residents of apartment buildings who want to volunteerwith the consent of building managementto coordinate recycling in their buildings. OROE will partner with DSNY in this effort and will use this new web-based recruiting tool to build a network of Volunteer Recycling Outreach Coordinators.[6] OROE will actively recruit, meet with and train VROCs to encourage proper recycling in their buildings. VROCs may receive a monthly OROE/DSNY newsletter and will be provided with posters and other promotional material to be distributed to fellow residents. To enhance the recruitment of volunteer recycling coordinators, the OROE Director will develop incentive programs to reward VROCs who successfully promote recycling in their buildings. In addition, OROE staff will recruit community based VROCs to serve as recycling ambassadors in their community. (See Section IV. D. below.)

2. Single-family & other residences

For 1-3 family homes and multi-family buildings without on site building staff, ROC will, as feasible, go door to door to deliver recycling tool kits and, if contact with the owner and/or tenant is made, answer any questions homeowners and tenants may have. Homeowners and tenants at these residences will be provided information and training on the following topics:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19 (How to avoid fines)
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Handling household hazardous waste
• Yard waste, electronics, and clothing diversion options
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Incentive and award programs
• Home composting

C. Follow-up

Three months after outreach and training, OROE Recycling Coordinators will contact the selected building service personnel and tenant volunteers to determine the extent to which recycling practices have improved. For buildings where the ROC identified a large potential for improved diversion, the Coordinator will return to the buildings to provide additional training and follow-up. As noted above, VROCs will receive a monthly electronic newsletter and OROE will foster healthy competition within and across Community Districts to increase community participation in the City's recycling efforts. OROE staff will continually build and update an email and mailing database coded by community board, building location and type of interest in the programs so that tenants and building service personnel can be contacted on a regular basis.

With the goal of increasing the recycling diversion rates, OROE will work with DSNY to measure outcomes and to analyze which outreach efforts have been the most successful and to make any necessary adjustments to the outreach plans.

IV. Non-residential Outreach

A. Community Facilities

Working with DSNY, OROE staff will identify specific large community facilities that substantially contribute to DSNY's waste stream. OROE will create action plans applicable to particular community facilities, e.g., schools, hospitals, etc. OROE staff will contact facility management personnel to review their current recycling systems and to provide suggestions and training on how to increase diversion rates and reduce waste production.

B. Schools

After consultation with DSNY staff, OROE staff will contact management and janitorial staff to review current recycling practices at certain individual schools. When the review has been completed, OROE staff will provide the following information and training to the building service staff and management:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19 and how it applies to schools
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Handling hazardous waste
• Disposal of electronic waste and bulk items
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Awards and incentives

In addition, OROE staff will provide education and training on proper recycling and waste reduction techniques to students and teachers. Training will include:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19 and how it applies to schools
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Waste reduction techniques
• Awards and incentives

Staff will promote DSNY's Golden Apple award program as well as the NYC Teachers RRResource guide. OROE staff will help organize school assemblies and classroom presentations aimed at educating and promoting recycling at the school and students home. School volunteer recycling coordinators will be recruited to promote recycling and track improvements at the school.

Students will be encouraged to actively participate and educate their parents and guardians about the importance of recycling and waste reduction. OROE staff will follow-up with school management, janitorial staff, faculty and student volunteers to ensure that improved recycling and waste reduction techniques have been implemented.

C. Other Public Facilities

Focusing on selected public facilities that produce the largest amount of solid waste, OROE staff will work with DSNY to identify and contact management and janitorial staff in order to review current recycling practices and provide on site training education at large public buildings and facilities. When a review has been completed, OROE staff will provide the following information and training to the building service staff and management:

• The environmental and cost benefits of recycling
• Understanding the requirements of Local Law 19 and how it applies to the individual facility
• Which items are recyclable and which are not
• Proper signage, bag and bin color, and collection days
• Handling hazardous waste
• Disposal of electronic waste and bulk items
• Community and business reuse opportunities
• Awards and incentives

At these selected facilities, OROE staff will also recruit volunteer recycling coordinator(s) to promote recycling, implement waste reduction techniques and track improvements at the facility.

D. Community Groups

Working with DSNY, OROE staff will develop relationships with community groups, local environmental organizations, cultural institutions, home owner associations, and other interested parties to promote the city's recycling message and goals and to recruit community based VROCs. Community based VROCs will help DSNY and OROE spur more community support for, and involvement, in the city's recycling and waste reduction programs.[7]

V. Conclusion

The new Office the Recycling Outreach and Education is dedicated to working with DSNY to reach the ambitious but realistic goals set out in the Mayors landmark Solid Waste Management Plan. OROE's mission is to increase recycling, reduce waste production, and expand composting in all five boroughs. In conjunction with DSNY, OROE will use direct community outreach, recruitment and involvement of New York City residents to promote and achieve the City's recycling goals.