New building regulation requires space for recycling

New New York City buildings are about to get a little greener thanks to a new recycling mandate approved by the City Council. Crain’s reported. The new bill, which must still be signed by Mayor Bloomberg, seeks to bring New York up to the recycling standards of other major world cities. Currently New Yorkers recycle only about 15 percent of their residential waste.

The bill, sponsored by City Councilman Dan Garodnick, requires that all new residential buildings with five or more floors and nine or more units to set aside up to 350 square feet for recycling bins, varying slightly depending on the number of units in the building. The bill does not affect current buildings.

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“We want to make it as easy as possible for New Yorkers to recycle and to up our numbers, which are poor relative to other cities,” Garodnick said. [Crain’s] —Christopher Cameron