NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York City has temporarily stopped issuing many composting fines, two weeks after enforcement began on April 1, to help educate confused New Yorkers.
Curbside composting is still mandatory in the city, but for now fines will only be issued to repeat offenders at buildings with more than 30 units, officials said.
The pause on fines for buildings with fewer than 30 units is to give residents more time to learn how to properly sort their organic waste. It's unclear how long the pause will last.
The change comes after the Sanitation Department issued more than 3,600 fines in the first two weeks of enforcement. This week, a coalition of councilmembers introduced a bill to overturn the law, saying constituents were "outraged."
“Make no mistake: Composting continues to be mandatory in New York City,” City Hall said in a statement Friday. “Mayor Adams has led by example on this issue and composts daily, whether he is at Gracie Mansion or at City Hall, but he has also heard from New Yorkers across all five boroughs — including at town halls — who still have questions about this extremely important program.”
The statement continued: “In an effort to facilitate even higher participation, we will conduct additional outreach and education on composting before issuing fines to the most persistent offenders who repeatedly refuse to compost. Through the end of the year, we will be distributing additional education materials and holding more community events about how to sort out waste.”
Council Member Shaun Abreu, chair of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, slammed the move Friday, saying, " Mayor Adams’ administration continues to undermine the City's Zero Waste goals.”
Abreu said the City Council provided over $6 million in funding to “stretched-thin” nonprofits so they could do door-to-door outreach after the city cut composting education.
“If DSNY’s $1.9 billion budget can’t fund basic education for organics collection, what are we even doing?” Abreau said. “The Mayor can’t cut corners, botch the rollout, and then turn around and blame New Yorkers for being confused, especially when he never prioritized educating them on the rules in the first place.”
Composting became mandatory for all NYC residents in October 2024, but the Department of Sanitation didn’t start issuing fines to homes and buildings until April 1 to give people time to learn the rules and get composting bins.
The mandate requires all residents to separate food scraps, food-soiled paper, or yard waste from trash and recycling. DSNY enforces composting by using inspectors to sift through people’s trash in search of organic waste.
According to the DSNY website, fines escalate with each offense, eventually reaching $100 per violation for smaller buildings and $300 per violation for larger building.
While composting has been happening for a while, many people have expressed confusion about the procedures. For example, do staples have to be removed from tea bags and stickers pulled off fruit? (The answer is no to both).
Councilmember Kristy Marmorato, of the Bronx, said earlier this week that a lot of residents are upset because there was not proper education and outreach to the community on how to properly compost—a charge the DSNY vehemently disputed.
“One neighborhood in my district in Pelham Bay there were over 150 tickets given out in that first week and these people are outraged, they’re upset, they feel like it’s just another taxation on private homeowners, on the working class,” Marmorato said.
The city said the composting program has been an early success, with a record 3.8 million pounds of compost collected last week alone.
For more information about composting visit the DSNY composting page. There’s also an informational pamphlet that’s been published.