Reduce, reuse, recycle - well, not so much.
New Yorkers are still tossing out more than half the stuff they should be recycling, managing to go green only 42% of the time.
Recycling rates had been steadily improving since the program was first implemented 20 years ago.
But they've been flat ever since a big part of the city's recycling collection was suspended for two years in a post-9/11 budget crisis.
Plenty of the blame lies with confusion over what can be recycled and what can't:
Plastics labeled 1 and 2 - always; 3 through 7, never. Egg cartons - but only if they're cardboard. Milk cartons, for certain, but no yogurt containers. Glasses, but no glassware. Batteries, yes; rechargeable batteries, nope.
"The hard part is getting people to understand," said East Harlem building superintendent James Underwood as he sorted through the trash.
Joan Botta of the Bronx is a dedicated recycler and still can't keep everything straight.
"Once I put a yogurt cup in there and I got a ticket. I just don't understand that one," said the 60-year-old Pelham Gardens resident.
Another problem? There's just nowhere to store three or four different types of trash in cramped New York quarters.
"You have to put each thing in a different place, you can't put anything together and it's too much for me now," said James Harrison, 76, of Mott Haven, the Bronx, which has one of the worst recycling rates in the city.
Environmentalists wish the city would put more effort into educating New Yorkers about recycling.
"There's no reason why we can't do as well as San Francisco and Seattle, both of which have more items on their [recycling] list than we do," said Eric Goldstein, senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council.
Robert Lange, director of recycling for the Sanitation Department, said New York does pretty well when compared with other huge cities with a lot of apartments.
The neighborhoods that recycle the most household paper, plastic, glass and metal have more single-family homes. Queens has the best residential recycling record, followed by Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx, which recycles only 34% of what it could.
"I think we're a little more eco-conscious than other neighborhoods," said David Fullman, a homeowner in Bayside, Queens, which has one of the best recycling records of the city's 59 sanitation districts.
New Yorkers might be a little greener if the fines for ignoring the rules were bigger than $25, Lange said. "Twenty-five dollars is not a strong motivator for an apartment building to recycle," he said.
The economics aren't so great for the city, either. The city is paid between $5 million and $20 million a year by recycling companies for our paper, metal, glass and plastic.
It still costs more per ton to recycle than to ship garbage to an out-of-state landfill.
Still, environmentalists say, that shouldn't stop people from thinking about the biggest cost of all: the Earth's future.
Every New Yorker throws out 16 pounds of household trash a week - and only 15% of it is ultimately recycled.
"Many people here don't follow the rules," said Arif Mata, who lives in the northern section of Staten Island. "A lot of people just want to put all the garbage in one big bag and throw it away."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/10/04/2009-10-04_how_green_is_my_city_not_too_much_pros_blame_confusion__lack_of_space.html#ixzz0SzNt9JJG
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