By Dan Trudeau
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council leaders announced last week that the city’s recycling program will be altered as part of a deal to balance the 2003-2004 budget. Recycling pickups will drop from once a week to once every two weeks, the mayor said.
Bloomberg also said garbage pickup in Queens and Staten Island will not be cut from twice a week to once a week as Sanitation officials had said in April.
The proposal met with angry responses from Queens residents when it was announced in the spring. Fortunately for those who were unhappy with the plan, unexpected federal assistance totaling $11 million has been allocated to the Department of Sanitation to help maintain the semiweekly trash collection.
In addition, the city will resume recycling glass as of April 2004, a service that was suspended in July 2002 because of financial problems.
The city also stopped plastic recycling programs last summer but resumed those programs Tuesday after a New Jersey company offered the city recycling service for an inexpensive price in January.
Queens residents will soon receive information from the city Department of Sanitation telling when the rest of the changes will be implemented.
