Last week, a big crowd of New Yorkers gathered in Times Square to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day. That day also marked the third anniversary of PlaNYC, our “green print” for a greener, greater New York. So we seized the opportunity to update New Yorkers on our progress, recommit ourselves to the goals of the plan and invite residents of all five boroughs to share ideas about how we can build a greener future.
We have made some great strides since PlaNYC’s launch on Earth Day in 2007.
We’re on our way to planting a million new trees across the city – and we’ve already planted 320,000 of them.
We’ve created new parks, many on our waterfront, and over 200 miles of bikeways.
We’ve turned a quarter of our yellow taxis green, by converting them to hybrid power.
We’ve passed the most comprehensive local “green buildings” law in America. – one that will have the same impact on emissions as making the entire city of Oakland, California carbon neutral.
And last week, we received millions of dollars in federal stimulus grants that will help owners make their buildings even more energy-efficient.
These actions have already helped reduce citywide carbon emissions 9 percent below 2005 levels, and they’ve made New York City a leader in the environmental movement, not just in America, but worldwide.
Now, we have to do more and do better. From the outset, we said PlaNYC would be updated every four years – and that includes taking a fresh look at issues that weren’t covered in the original PlaNYC, such as solid waste.
We’ve made some important headway on our long-term plan to change the way we transport solid waste – getting heavily polluting diesel trucks off our streets.
New York already has the biggest curbside recycling program in America – and we’re working to improve it. In fact, we’re looking at ways to start a clothing and fabric recycling program because textiles are completely recyclable and make up 5 percent of our total waste.
But dealing with the 25,000 tons of solid waste New Yorkers produce every day is about more than moving it or recycling it. We need to ask ourselves some basic questions: How do we throw less stuff away? How can we start re-using things at home and at work, even before we consider recycling them? And how do we make our recycling programs more productive and more cost-effective – because in these difficult budget times, we have to stretch every dollar further.
To answer those questions we need you. Over the next 12 months, we’re going to ask all New Yorkers to help update PlaNYC, so we can stay on course toward our long-term goals of giving New York the cleanest air of any big city in America, creating more of the parks and open spaces that our growing city needs, expanding our vital mass transit network, and shrinking New York City’s carbon footprint by 30 percent by the year 2030.
To join the conversation and help take PlaNYC to the next level, please visit the PlaNYC website on nyc.gov, or call 3-1-1 and offer your ideas.
