The Major Reform of City-Assigned Trash Haulers for NYC Businesses Slowly Moves Forward
The plan approved in 2019 by the Adams administration brings a major reform to the current “free-for-all” method that New York City’s businesses use for the hiring of private trash carting companies, but implementation has been slow. However, the city’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) recently released a timeline for the program. As part of the plan, the city was divided into 20 commercial waste zones, with Central Queens the first zone to start, followed by two zones covering the entire Bronx borough that will begin implementation between October 1st and November 30th of this year. Based on the latest schedule, full implementation for the remaining zones will extend through the end of 2027. The lack of a system over the years has created what has been described as a chaotic and dangerous commercial waste industry – resulting in a high volume of crashes and injuries and overlapping routes that worsen carbon emissions. Under the city approved plan, there will be no more than three carting companies allowed to operate in each zone, which is significantly less than the more than 50 carters that sometimes serve a single neighborhood under the existing rules. Upon full implementation of the plan, the “so-called vehicle miles traveled by private waste trucks” is expected to be greatly reduced from “a current high of 23 million miles per year citywide down to 5 million.” Although as of March, “zero of the 11,000 businesses in the Queens pilot zone that includes Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst had submitted any service or billing complaints with their new assigned carter, the city has had to fine carters about 200 times during the pilot for safety problems, and the implementation of the pilot was labor intensive.” As a result, the DSNY will reportedly need a bigger budget to carry out the full implementation of all 20 zones; and in response, $1.9 billion in DSNY funding has been included in the next fiscal year under Mayor Adams’ preliminary budget.