As curbside organics pickup resumed in some Brooklyn neighborhoods on Monday, Oct. 4, a new report finds that city officials must boost buy-in from New Yorkers in order to make the program more cost-effective and likely to succeed.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio cut the food scraps collection service due to a COVID-19-induced budget crunch in 2020, the program had achieved a very low rate of waste diverted from landfills, making it much more expensive for the Department of Sanitation trucks to collect compared to garbage and recycling, according to a study by the city’s Independent Budget Office.