Money for Worthy Recycling Efforts

On Tuesday, the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC) hosted the first Recycling Awareness Benefit aboard the Queen of Hearts, a 3-level paddlewheel ship where folks had the opportunity to learn first-hand the accomplishments of CENYC and its Office of Recycling Outreach and Education and future plans to increase outreach in public housing. 

CENYC has been promoting recycling and waste reduction at NYC public housing buildings in Manhattan through a position created with a one-year grant from the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board. But the funding for this position ends on June 1, 2009. The benefit allows CENYC to keep on a Public Housing Recycling Outreach Coordinator position, currently focused on Manhattan Housing stock.  This coordinator can expand outreach to New York City Housing Authority properties in other boroughs and also focus on expanding composting and additional opportunities to collect items that are not included in the curbside recycling program, like textiles and electronics.  At Fort Washington Houses, for example, the current Public Housing Coordinator has visited more than 200 apartment units to conduct one-to-one recycling education with building residents. As a result, Fort Washington Houses has increased recycling from a handful of bags per month to 140 bags of paper, metal, glass, and plastics set out for recycling in February 2009.

In total, CENYC raised more than $50,000 towards its recycling initiatives.  “We’re very thankful to all our supporters and attendees who helped bring in the funding necessary to support our public housing efforts and our city-wide textile and electronics recycling,” said Marcel Van Ooyen, CENYC Executive Director.   As they put it, recycling is the “everyday way” to help fight global climate change because it reduces methane emissions from landfills.

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