De Blasio unveils sweeping environmental plan on Earth Day
The nation’s biggest city, in a far-reaching effort to limit its impact on the environment, marked Earth Day on Wednesday by announcing a plan to reduce its waste output by 90 percent by 2030.
Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his sweeping OneNYC plan, which includes an overhaul of the city’s recycling program, incentives to reduce waste and tacit support for the City Council’s plan to dramatically reduce the use of plastic shopping bags.
New York, with about 8.5 million residents, would be the largest city in the Western Hemisphere to adopt such a plan, which aims to reduce the amount of its waste by more than 3 million tons from its 2005 level of about 3.6 million tons.
“The average New Yorker throws out nearly 15 pounds of waste a week, adding up to millions upon millions of tons a year,” de Blasio said in a statement. “To be a truly sustainable city, we need to tackle this challenge head on.”