Educating Tomorrow

I sent the following letter to the mayor on the city's website. The response below the letter was from Mary Most from NYC Dept. of Sanitation's Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse & Recycling. You should contact her if you are interested in starting a school recycling program. She can provide you with information and some supplies, including decals, poster, curriculum, videos, and more. She is also the person you will work with on your Golden Apple Awards entry if you start a program. She recommends that instead of writing to the Mayor, since she will in term receive the letter and have to respond to it, that we send all letters to Chancellor Klein, since the problem is within the DOE and he's responsible for enforcing his own regulations with regard to recycling (check out Coquille's blog for a copy on the Chancellor's regulations on recycling in the DOE).

-----------------------------My Letter to the Mayor-----------------------------

As a New York City teacher fellow who started and ran a recycling program in a Bedford-Styvesant middle school for two years. I face the issues discussed by the recent Post article: “IL'LITTER'ATE SCHOOLS FLUNK THEIR RECYCLING” on a daily basis.
I have a few questions for you:
1. Why doesn’t the city promote recycling?
2. Is the city’s garbage situation at a crisis level yet? When will it be?
3. How much garbage does the city generate?
4. Where does all of our the garbage go?
5. How much of this waste is reusable and/or recyclable?
6. What will happen if we keep throwing all of these recyclable items away?
7. Can the city or school generate some kind of income from recycling?
8. Is recycling cost effective?
9. When will we be so overwhelmed with garbage we won’t have anywhere else to put it? What will happen then?
10. Why don’t people realize that this is an inevitable crisis that must and can be averted through a wide-spread reduce, reuse, and recycling effort?
11. Where is the effort and why don’t I feel it’s presence in the city?
12. Why doesn’t the city abide by it’s own laws that says: RECYCLING IS THE LAW?
13. Why aren’t people in the city government, schools, the MTA, sanitation being held accountable for obeying the recycling laws?
14. Why is it so hard to add additional bins and just sort out recyclable items?
15. Is recycling even important, really?
16. What will it take to get this city to become environmentally friendly?
17. Why is it so hard for NYC to recycle when San Francisco recycles nearly 50% of its waste?
18. Why doesn't the city have a recycling plan and goals as part of the Plan 2030?

-----------------------------Mary Most's Email Response-----------------------------

11/9/07

Hi, Micki ~

Your message submitted as feedback to the NYC.gov website was forwarded to the Commissioner of Sanitation and then to the DSNY Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling for reply.

Also, I wanted to respond to the points in the long draft you posted on RecycleThis!, proposing a letter-writing campaign to the Mayor to encourage school recycling.

Here are links to the information you’re looking for:

* Recycling is included in PlaNYC 2030 as a critical way to reduce our carbon footprint. See: http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/greenyc/greenyc.shtml

* NYC’s Solid Waste Management Plan, passed by City Council last year after extensive citizen review, directs how NYC will handle our waste for the next 20 years. See: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/html/reports/swmp-4oct.shtml

* For information on: What's in NYC's Waste?, see our recently completed Waste Characterization Study at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/waste_char_study.shtml

* Note especially the WCS pie charts and comprehensive Results Highlights. See pie charts at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/wcs_charts.shtml

* For street basket recycling, please see Public Space Recycling at http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwasteless/html/recycling/public_space_recycling.shtml

* Also see our Frequently Asked Question, Why doesn’t New York City provide recycling containers on subway platforms?

* Recycling in Schools: DSNY-BWPRR handles several hundred requests from schools annually for our free information (decals, signs, posters, and educational materials) to help NYC schools set up their recycling programs. We also offer technical support: DSNY BWPRR Recycling Outreach staff has visited every school in New York City multiple times with the recycling message. We have distributed over 30,000 NYC Teachers RRResource Kits, developed to provide K-5 teachers with lesson plans, videos, and supplementary coloring & DOS/Marvel comic books on recycling.

* The NY STATE Department of Education has issued a letter encouraging all schools in the state to recycle properly, and requiring all schools in the state to file a report. See http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/facplan/documents/RecyclingLetter.pdf

* The Department of Education Chancellor's regulations for public schools recycling are posted on the Dept of Education website www.nyc.gov/schools at http://docs.nycenet.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-47/A-850.pdf. (You can easily find the link on our website www.nyc.gov/nycwasteless/schools) Please contact Joel Klein, Chancellor of the Department of Education, at www.nyc.gov/schools to encourage the governing body for NYC public schools to issue a similar updated directive, urging schools to recycle properly and reduce their carbon footprint.

Congratulations on your move from IS 33 K (where you helped win the Super Recyclers contest) to MS Math & Science Explorations. I’ll be glad to work with you to get this building’s recycling program set up properly.

I hope you find this information helpful. Thank you for your continued efforts to encourage schools to recycle and reduce New York’s waste.

Mary Most, Public Information Specialist

NYC Department of Sanitation

Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse & Recycling

44 Beaver St - 6th Floor

New York, NY 10004

917-237-5622

mmost@dsny.nyc.gov

www.nyc.gov/nycwasteless