Day: January 8, 2020

New York City’s public housing stock is teeming with trash — chutes stuffed beyond capacity, stairwells strewn with litter, bins for regular refuse overflowing with misplaced cans and bottles.

With 173,762 apartments whose residents virtually never recycle, the New York City Housing Authority offers one of the single best opportunities for Mayor Bill de Blasio to get a handle on the city’s runaway trash problem.

Yet as of last April, public housing residents were separating just 1.5 percent of the cans and bottles that make up about one-third of their trash stream — a function of decades of neglect by city officials who did not bother installing adequate recycling bins until the threat of a lawsuit.

Separation of food scraps that comprise another one-third of the garbage haul has been scarce, according to the housing authority’s 2019 waste management report.

“The consensus among NYCHA residents and staff alike is that garbage is everywhere, disorganized, and much too visible an intrusion on everyday quality of life,” the report stated. “NYCHA residents deserve better.”

The city’s residential waste challenges transcend the housing authority. Plastic Amazon packaging, “fast fashion” shopping and relatively meager penalties for recycling violations contribute to New York underperforming many other large American cities in recycling its garbage.