Two City Councilmembers are pushing legislation that would create composting and electronics waste drop-off sites to compensate for recycling reductions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under the Community Organics and Recycling Empowerment (CORE) Act, the city would place three drop-off sites for organics and community recycling centers for hazardous or e-waste in each community district by June 2021. The 177 centers would be open 20 hours a week, at minimum.

"It particularly seems relevant right now because we're talking about budget cuts, we're talking about more people being at home, probably producing more organic waste that they're cooking and stuff like that," said Stuyvesant Town Councilmember Keith Powers, who's sponsoring the compost legislation. "The whole point here is to get the city better prepared, better organized around organic recycling and make sure that every community has access to it."

Councilmember Antonio Reynoso's bill would mandate the same for electronics and hazardous waste.

"By law we're not allowed to drop off e-waste at the curbside or hazardous materials," Reynoso said. Those items could range from old televisions and computers to CFL light bulbs and latex paint. "We are cutting a program in the city that does exactly that and gives us an alternative to how exactly we get rid of this waste."

Existing drop-off sites are currently closed due to social distancing guidelines to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, but before the pandemic, drop-off sites for composting food scraps, electronic waste, and hazardous waste weren't distributed across all neighborhoods. The existing sites that are currently closed due to the pandemic face budget cuts too—which would impact community organizations that process food scraps into compost like the Lower East Side Ecology Center in East River Park, Brooklyn Botanic Garden at Red Hook Farm, and others.

"There's an equity issue as well. There's certain neighborhoods that probably need it more than others, when it comes to climate justice and equity that we haven't solved for," Reynoso said.

Sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia said that $106 million in cuts have been for department programs—including $21.1 million and $2.2 million in cuts for the suspension of the organics and hazardous waste programs, respectively, and another $7 million on the curbside e-waste program and community composting project. Litter, rat prevention, and syringe collection would be suspended under a $9.3 million cut, and $2.9 million in recycling outreach with GrowNYC would be scrapped.

During a Finance Committee hearing, Garcia called the proposed cuts "painful," but necessary due to a "new reality." She added it "breaks my heart" to cut the organics program.

"It's fully reasonable that we have to make some adjustments and changes in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis in the city,” Powers said. “That being said, we're proposing something that is a modified version of the regular program to allow people to do it at a much cheaper cost to the city."

Reynoso and Powers acknowledge the brown bin program would have to be cut, but want the drop-off sites to safely reopen and to be expanded under their act. Powers said the sanitation department would have leeway to determine where food scraps from the sites would be processed.

Powers and Reynoso don't know how much their respective measures would cost yet, though a financial analysis is a part of the legislative process.

The Sanitation Committee, which Reynoso chairs, will hold a hearing on the bills at a date to be determined.

Mayoral spokesperson Mitch Schwartz said the administration is reviewing the bills.