Restler questions compost receptacles and smart bin utilization

I see that you don't like my bill.

Correct.

Yeah.

So I said all the nice things first.

You might want to take back those compliments.

Yeah, I know.

Well, we'll see how the conversation goes.

So appreciate that the smart compost bins were kind of created in a different moment before we had mandatory composting fully in place.

And our legislation is, I think, rightly ambitious in trying to set a sizable number of

compost receptacles around every community district because there are times when you're having lunch in a park or having lunch at a city council hearing and you need a compost receptacle for your excess food.

Do you think that a smaller number of

Compost receptacles per community district could make sense if 25 is too big a number.

I think that, and if you look at the utilization of our smart compost bins, FY25, and this is all in our zero waste report, which came out also on September 30th, the same day as our commercial waste zones annual report, big day for annual reports in sanitation.

Great.

FY25, almost 1.1 million unlocks.

FY26, 0.6 million unlocks, 42% reduction in utilization over that one year.

And keep in mind, we have only very recently been really focusing on enforcement for mandatory organics.

I, for example, used to use a smart bin until my building got a ticket for not having a compost bin.

And then they got a compost bin, and now I just use my building's compost bin.

So I just, I don't think that that's an investment that necessarily makes sense at this time.

I think if there is a pot of money that we are going to invest in composting in New York City, it's probably better spent on education and outreach

rather than providing additional bins for folks because we will come to every building in New York City once a week and pick it up from the front of your building.