In Bay Ridge, 59 percent of all waste is recycled.
By ISABELLE SCHÄFER
In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, six different garbage cans, among them three recycling cans, neatly line up in front of every two-story tall private house. A woman comes out of one of them , holding two small black bags and a big blue one. She meticulously puts the bags in their respective cans.
Fifteen subway stops away, it is a different scene. Black, 6-foot-long garbage bags pile up on the curb, in front of the Marcus Garvey public housing complex that is towering over Brownsville, Brooklyn.
A metal door opens and a 5-foot-tall woman comes out, slowly pushing a cart with two big half-opened bags. When she arrives at the pile of garbage bags, she heaves one bag after the other on top of the quavering black tower.
This woman, smaller than the cart she pushes, is in charge of putting all the trash of the building out on the curb. “Everyone just throws everything together and I take it out,” she said simply. She doesn’t want to be named.
A new survey by the Sanitation Department of New York City showed huge differences in the recycling rates of neighborhoods in Brooklyn. In Brownsville, only 24 percent of the overall waste gets recycled, compared to 59 percent in Bay Ridge. In a report from 2005, the New York City Sanitation Department wrote that the realistically achievable diversion rate for the whole city would be about 24 percent.
“I think the reason why Bay Ridge is doing so well is because our community is predominately comprised of one- and two-family homes,” Josephine Beckmann, district manager of Community Board 10, which includes Bay Ridge , said in an e-mail. “Recycling becomes a family affair.” According to the census of 2000, about 60 percent of the neighborhood’s households are families.
And some neighbors in Bay Ridge do seem to help one another out. “I’m never exactly sure how much I have to separate, you know, the paper from the tin cans or paper cups from plastic items,” said David Gaddas, a resident of Bay Ridge, a little embarrassed. “A family in my building actually makes sure everything is in order and takes care of putting the garbage on the curb and everything,” he said. The tall young man with fashionable square glasses is quite happy about the extra help in his three-floor building. He knows that there is a fine for improper : According to the New York City Sanitation department Web site, fines start at $25 and can go to $500, depending on the nature of the violation.
Rules about what is recyclable and what not are indeed very precise. Cardboard egg cartons are fine and recyclable; so is glossy paper. Paper cups, napkins and tissues though, are not acceptable in a recycling can. Metal cans should be recycled, but not the plastic container of food from a deli. Getting the recycling sorting right does seem easier if more people watch out for one other.
But neighborly help can also be tightly controlled. “Here people are very strict when it comes to recycling,” said Ewa Navarro, who also lives in Bay Ridge. “If I do put something in the wrong place, my neighbors will call me up and make me aware of it. If you do it too often, they will tell the landlord.” The blond woman lives in a three-apartment building, and she said she understood that her neighbors cared a lot about the issue. She was trying her best, she said.
The landlord is the one held responsible by the city in case of a recycling violation. The tenants are not. But in Bay Ridge, landlords check on their tenants. “The owner of my building is obsessed by recycling,” said Diana Segura, who lives near the junction of 68th Street and Fourth Avenue. “He checks a lot and often reminds me of it.” The young mother of a 3-year-old is not bothered by the control and doesn’t think that it is strict. “I am always careful because it is important,” she said.
Information about recycling is often stressed in community board meetings and people get involved. “School District 20 has done a superb job in educating children on the importance of recycling, “ said Beckmann. “Many students actually enter a contest run by the Department of Sanitation called the Big Apple Award.” Recycling material, stickers and flyers are always available in the community board office. “Residents regularly come into the office to ask for information,” Beckmann said.
Such information also is available at the community board of Brownsville, where only 24 percent of all waste is recycled. “We make it known that we have literature here, so that people can come if they want,” said Viola D. Greene-Parker, district manager of Brownsville.
“Although recycling is in effect, we find there are a number of property owners that are not recycling as they should,” Greene-Parker said, “We are still at the bottom, comparing to other communities citywide.”
According to a study by the New York City Sanitation Department, recycling rates are directly connected to income and population density. If more people live in one building and their income is lower, they will recycle less; if fewer people live in a building and their income is medium or higher, they will recycle more.
Brownsville has the highest concentration of low income public housing facilities in New York City. The neighborhood has 18 housing projects, representing a total of 98 buildings, ranging from four stories to 25 stories. In the three Marcus Garvey buildings on Amboy Street, there are 321 apartments and an estimated 847 residents.
In such buildings, as in many apartment houses, trash is deposited in a chute through a door on each floor. Once on the ground floor, staff takes care of it and puts it on the curb. Because of this construction, there is no space for recycling cans that might remind tenants to use them.
Raegene Valogean’s grandfather lives in such a public housing complex. “There are no recycling cans or bags. You just stuff everything in one bag and throw it down the chute,” she said.
There are also problems, however, with houses where fewer people live, she said; it is not only a public housing problem. “They are not conscientious, that is all,” said Greene-Parker.
Denise Shannon lives in a private house. She said she has just started recycling, but is having problems with it. “It is just too difficult. It is just too much. It takes much longer to fill the garbage now,” she said.
Other smaller public housing facilities look more like private houses. Shirley Abraham, a resident in a three-floor public housing building, said she recycles although she doesn’t have any cans in front of her door. “I put the trash in different bags and then I just put them on the street on Sundays,” she said.
Recycling practitioners have also found out that households with lower incomes produce less recyclable waste in the first place. They buy cheaper, bigger packages, but they go shopping less often than households with higher incomes that tend to buy smaller units, but in bigger quantity. Lots of small bottles are an example of what the wealthy tend to buy.
So if the recycling rates in Bay Ridge are so much higher than in Brownsville, it could also be partly explained by the fact that they have more recyclable waste on the whole.
In any case, the issue is taken seriously in Brownsville. The community board offers regular meetings to learn about recycling. “Every so often we have meetings with a speaker from the New York City Sanitation department coming in,” said Greene-Parker, “ He talks about the consequences of not recycling.”
The district manager said she does not know why inhabitants of her area are not recycling. “They should have all the appropriate cans,” she said. But she is not sure.
