Sanchez questions Anderson on textile recycling diversion rates and building participation
Sanchez notes DSNY collected 187,000 tons of textile waste but diverted only 4.3%, asking about historical difficulties and program utilization. Anderson explains the in-building textile collection program has about 2,500 enrolled buildings, is voluntary, and faces challenges from informal reuse that can't be measured.
And in fiscal year 25, the department collected 187,000 tons of textile waste, but only diverted 4.3%.
Can you explain the historical difficulties of textile recycling and diversion in the city?
Do you believe that the department-hosted textile drop-off sites, there's one in my building, thank you, and the free DSNY textile recycling collection program for in-building collection are being
successfully utilized by New Yorkers?
And then how might the department encourage more buildings to participate in the...
Textile recycling program.
So today we have around 2,500 buildings enrolled in our in-building textile collection program.
I think one of the important points of comparison here is between our in-building textile collection program and our in-building electronics collection program.
Electronics disposal has been prohibited by state law for over a decade, and so participation in that program is much more robust.
Textile collection is totally voluntary.
It's up to the building if they want to join.
We think it's a really great program because we give you the bin, you set it up in your building.
Whenever it's full, you call us and our partner comes to pick it up.
It's a great, I think, additional amenity that buildings can offer their residents, but it is, again, totally voluntary.
So that's a space where there's certainly more opportunity for additional outreach, additional engagement to grow that program, which has been relatively stagnant for the last few years.
As far as the textile collection more generally, I think part of the challenge, and I sort of pointed at this in my testimony, is there's a lot of informal.
Uh,
you know, reuse of material that's happening that we can't measure.
So the numbers that we look at in our waste characterization study really are only looking at the end of the line.
That's material that actually ends up in the trash and how much of what would end up in the trash gets reused or recycled through programs that we run.
But, you know, I have a two-year-old.
I can tell you that the WhatsApp groups are, you know, they go crazy for kids'clothes and things like that.
And whenever we, you know, whenever my daughter grows out of a size, we can always find someone to take that.
But no one's measuring the probably hundreds of pounds of one's.
and other things that I've donated over the years.