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March 4, 2004

City to Resume Glass Recycling and Weekly Collection in April

By ANTHONY DePALMA

Got glass?

Think twice before tossing it into the trash.

Now that the city is on track to resume its full recycling schedule on April 1, New Yorkers will once again have to get used to rinsing out mayonnaise jars and soda bottles and putting them aside the way they used to before glass recycling was suspended two years ago.

And the alternate-week pickup schedule the city imposed last year? Forget that, too. Starting April 1, the recycling truck will show up every week.

The Sanitation Department has put the new recycling rules on its Web site ( www.nyc.gov/sanitation ) and plans to mail brochures to all residents, owners and building managers later this month, said John J. Doherty, the commissioner.

The return of full recycling comes just as New Yorkers seemed to be getting used to last year's set of rules. City officials said yesterday that they expect widespread confusion, and acknowledged uncertainty over the program's cost and whether it will even work.

The Bloomberg administration first cut into the recycling program in 2002, and fiddled with it again last year. But then as the budget picture improved and environmental and community groups mounted stronger objections, the mayor promised to restore the recycling program.

Some questions over the costs of recycling stemmed from a report last month by the Independent Budget Office, which tried to clarify its position yesterday.

After analyzing Sanitation Department spending, the budget office asserted that recycling costs taxpayers roughly $34 million a year more than simply throwing everything away.

The real message of the report, said Preston Niblack, the deputy director, was that the incremental cost of recycling has been falling steadily. Increased rates of recycling, he said, would reduce costs even further.

But because so many New Yorkers are concerned about the environment, he said, "cost alone should not be the only grounds on which we evaluate the recycling program."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company