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NYC is slowly fixing its commercial waste industry. Advocates want them to speed it up.
By
Liam Quigley
Published Oct 29, 2024
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Liam Quigley
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Liam Quigley
Published Oct 29, 2024
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As New York City slowly implements a long-delayed reform of the private waste hauling industry, pedestrians and workers keep getting injured or killed at an alarming rate, according to a new report.
The city’s overhaul seeks to eliminate the long, inefficient routes common among commercial haulers. In 2019, the City Council passed a law requiring the implementation of a zone system, but the rollout has faced numerous delays. Just one out of 20 zones citywide will be implemented in the coming months. The new report, by the campaign Transform Don’t Trash NYC, argues the cost of that delay can be seen in the grim tally of injuries and deaths tied to the commercial waste industry.
Safety violations are still widespread among fleets of trucks owned by companies awarded spots in the new zones, according to the report, which found 103 injuries and three deaths involving those companies. The report analyzed data generated by the U.S. Department of Transportation from June 2022 to June 2024.
“Drivers and workers on these trucks [have] to do excessively long and fatiguing routes, which obviously can contribute to worker and public safety hazards,” said Justin Wood of the nonprofit law firm New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, one of the groups that compiled the report. “These things haven't yet changed because we don't yet have a full citywide implementation of this law.”
The deaths include that of a 35-year-old man in the West Village who was run over by a commercial waste driver who threw his truck in reverse on a one-way street in May 2024. An NYPD spokesperson said police have made no arrests in connection with the crash. The truck was owned by Liberty Ashes, which was awarded a coveted spot to collect commercial waste in Southeast Queens. The company did not return a phone call.
The lone zone system with a launch date is in Central Queens, where the new collection protocol is expected to begin in January of next year. The sanitation department has faced criticism for how it selected carters to operate in the new zones, as advocates have questioned some awardees' safety records.
Sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani said a timeline for the full rollout of the commercial waste zone plan will be revealed once the first zone in Queens is fully implemented.
“This has been a thoughtful, thorough process that will reduce emissions, strengthen oversight and increase worker protections and safety across the industry,” he said. He added that the full implementation of the zone system will mean 12 million fewer miles driven per year by trash trucks.
The reform has prompted a wave of consolidation in an industry that’s long had a reputation for corruption. Gothamist previously reported that one of the companies awarded collection rights in the new system hired the son of a former owner of a company that had become the poster child for the dangers of the private carting industry.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
sanitation
Liam Quigley
Liam Quigley is a reporter covering parks & sanitation for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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