Pen-Elayne on the Web

Spin Cycle

We just received notice in our mailbox yesterday that the NYC Department of Sanitation is once again recycling plastic bottles and jugs. "To save money," the notice reads, "NYC suspended plastic and glass recycling in July 2002. The City has been working to bring recycling costs down. With better recycling contracts now in place, the City can resume plastics recycling." Apparently the program started up again at the beginning of this month; it just took them three weeks to inform residents while we kept throwing away all those soda bottles and juice cartons and milk jugs. Now, I consider myself fairly well-informed, and if I didn't know about this until yesterday I have to wonder why Bloomberg's government is trying to keep it so relatively low-key. Possibly because the penny-wise-pound-foolish Bloomberg had no desire to reinstate the program after he slashed it, and only relented when he was shown how the city could collect at a profit (and we still don't have glass recycling back). The Gotham Gazette's got more on this story.