Mayor de Blasio’s new Sanitation Department boss rolled out plans Saturday for several bold initiatives that will affect every New Yorker — and their trash.
Kathryn Garcia, who oversaw sewer operations for the Department of Environmental Protection, said she’d expand Mayor Bloomberg’s composting program just after de Blasio announced her appointment Saturday as the Department of Sanitation’s new commissioner.
“We’ve spoken about taking this agency to the forefront of the nation in terms of composting,” Garcia said. “Food waste is the largest percentage of waste in New York City, and we have to deal with that if we’re going to sustain the future.”
For most New Yorkers, the plan will mean separating organic waste out from other trash.
De Blasio praised Bloomberg for the composting pilot program now in effect in some Staten Island and Brooklyn neighborhoods, and said it’ll expand to every borough within five years.
“We are going to save a lot of money,” he said. “We’re going to not send as much off to landfills. It’s going to be much more environmentally appropriate.”
Garcia also laid out plans to begin converting organic waste into natural gas, to faze out the agency’s gas-powered vehicles in favor of electric ones, and to make the agency more welcoming to women.
Of the department’s 6,000 employees, only 200 are female.
“I think across the city women should feel these jobs, which have historically been dominated by men, are a really great opportunity for them,” she said.