By increasing the number of products the City buys which are durable, and requiring longer warrantees, and therefore, decreasing the number of disposable and nondurable products, the City saves over the long run. Durable goods are designed to last at least three years. Goods which are made to last longer are purchased less frequently and take up less storage space. If durable goods are purchased whenever possible, the number of goods thrown away, and therefore solid waste tonnage, decreases substantially, saving the City in collection and disposal costs. For example, the purchase of one plastic, reusable food service tray or even products in reusable packages, replaces the purchase and disposal of hundreds of disposable ones. Fresh Kills is a finite resource, and when it is depleted, alternative disposal costs will skyrocket. Anything the City can do to delay this will create huge savings.

Purchasing durable products saves not only money, but also the environment. When we replace dozens or hundreds of disposable items with a single durable one, we reduce the amount of air pollution and energy impacts associated with trucking the extra disposable items to the City agency and from there to the landfill. We also reduce the amount of pollution from manufacturing and packaging, and we similarly reduce the depletion of resources used to make the disposable products, namely oil, trees, minerals, and water. The less we deplete these natural riches, the less we damage the environment and fragile habitats due to mining and logging impacts.

In some cases it may not be necessary to have brand new products or fixtures in a City building or office. By increasing the purchase by the City of products which have previously been used, for example building supplies such as rehabilitated doors, windows, toilets, and bricks, which have been repaired to meet City specs, the City saves money. The City will also save money due to the provisions in Intro 509 when the City makes better use of the Department of General Services’ warehouses in which are stored usable furniture and equipment.

Again, the City not only saves money by employing reused and remanufactured goods, but it also reduces environmental impacts and resources depletion by reducing the quantity of goods and packaging created and disposed. Additionally, when the City buys remanufactured goods, it is supporting the local, city-based repair industry, creating economic development.

Intro 509 builds on the provisions of Local Law 19 of 1989 and the achievements in environmental purchasing pursued by the City government thus far, in that purchase of products with higher percentages of recycled content will increase over time. This bill codifies a previous executive order on the purchase of printing and writing paper with recycled content, and is similar to one for the whole country signed by President Clinton in 1993. Passage of Intro 509 will also see to it that the City will procure at least a minimum amount of other paper and nonpaper recycled products over the next few years, helping to close the recycling loop.

Buying goods and packaging which include postconsumer, recycled content helps the City in a number of ways:

The bill will require City agencies to examine their repair practices, again resulting in savings for the City. For example, it would save the City money to continually upgrade and modify computers, by adding new chips and drives, rather than throwing them out and buying new ones. The City saves money when it makes greater efforts to repair furniture and maintains other durable goods in serviceable condition, rather than throwing them out, and having to buy new ones.

The Waste Prevention Committee recognizes that it is practically very difficult to include every important aspect of environmental procurement in this, or any, bill. We will be looking forward to working with the Council in the future to address such significant procurement issues as reducing the purchases of products and packaging containing toxic constituents, and purchasing products which conserve energy and water resources. Thus, though Intro. 509 does not include every provision we might have hoped for, if it is passed, we believe it will be landmark legislation in the area of environmental procurement -- a model for other municipalities and states.

The Waste Prevention Committee has presented testimony in the past regarding the extent to which waste prevention initiatives can decrease City expenditures on solid waste management... According to the Final Revisions to the Solid Waste Management Plan, presented by DOS to NYSDEC at their request on October 28, 1992, (after the City Council's final review) the total costs for prevention programs for 1995 are $19.16 (say $20) to prevent a ton of waste from entering the DOS management system. But according to the same report, for 1995 the cost to collect, process, and/or dispose of a ton of waste in DOS' integrated management system is $202.65 (say $200). This means that every dollar spent this year to prevent waste will avoid the expenditure of ten dollars next year and every year after that! In fact, if DOS' waste prevention programs are effective in the long term (and we need studies to confirm this), then every $20 spent this year to prevent a ton of waste will result in $200 less next year and in all subsequent years. Now with increased truck routing flexibility, these savings of $180 per ton resulting from waste prevention will be realized more often by the City.

Further, the Final Revisions to the Solid Waste Management Plan show costs for Waste Prevention programs staying below $20 until 2003, while the total collection and facility costs for non-waste prevention programs rise steadily to over $300 by 2009. In the next ten years the savings due to waste prevention would mount considerably, to as much as $100 million in the year 8% waste prevention is achieved, and the return on investment could approach $100 for every $1 spent. Further, every ton of waste which is not deposited at Fresh Kills is money in the bank insofar as future solid waste management costs. For, when Fresh Kills is eliminated, export costs may result in a doubling or tripling of the costs of solid waste management for the City, if the similar experience of our nearest neighbor, Newark, is any indication. The City should want to maximize reduction and recycling as soon as possible and as much as possible to reduce the environmental impacts of landfilling to Staten Island, and to delay the time when export will drive our transportation and disposal costs through the roof. That is, assuming we can find disposal sites if Congress regulates inter-state shipments of waste.

The State’s Solid Waste Management Act of 1988 stipulates that the City should be aiming to achieve a 10% waste prevention and 40% recycling goal by 1997. At present the City is achieving only 15% recycling and has not yet documented a specific percentage for waste prevention. Implementation of Intro. 509 will reduce the amount of disposable products and packaging purchased by the City and will therefore reduce by that amount the quantity disposed. The reporting provisions in the bill will be helpful in documenting to the State the amount of waste prevention achieved as a result of our proposed changes in procurement practices.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the Sanitation Department has failed to meet the City’s mandatory recycling tonnage requirements for the last few years, and that at the current rate, it has no hope of coming anywhere close to the State’s 1997 goals. The power to insure that DOS meets the goals to which New York City and New York State agreed in 1992 lies with the Council, not with NYS DEC. It is up to the City Council to see to it that the City meets the State’s goals, as well as the City’s own recycling requirements. For this reason, and the economic and environmental arguments presented above, we strongly suggest that the Environmental Protection Committee and the entire Council begin the process of enforcing prudent solid waste management policy in New York City by passing Intro. 509.