The city stopped handing out fines to smaller residential buildings that don’t follow the city’s mandatory composting rules, saying it needs to do more public education on how to participate. But without a dedicated budget for outreach, can officials make that happen?

An organic waste bin near the intersection of Neill and Fowler Avenues in the Bronx. The neighborhood’s ZIP code 10462 received some of the highest summonses for noncompliance with mandatory composting. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

By June 30, New York City officials are set to decide on a budget for the upcoming 2026 fiscal year. 

As negotiations come to a head, lawmakers have raised concerns about the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) not having a dedicated budget for educating New Yorkers on the city’s mandatory curbside composting program.

Only two weeks after the city began enforcing the new composting rules on April 1, the administration suspended fines issued to non-complying residential buildings with 30 or fewer units until next year. 

The program remains mandatory and the city will still issue warnings. But pausing penalties for non-compliance, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said, would allow the city to do “additional outreach and education on composting.” Residents “still have questions about this extremely important program,” the spokesperson added.

But DSNY’s Deputy Commissioner Joshua Goodman said in a hearing last month that  “there’s no additional or dedicated line item” in the budget for “outreach and education” specific to the program, and that they are using “existing resources” to get the word out instead.

“Clearly, the existing resources were not enough” if the administration was compelled to pause the fines to do more outreach, Councilmember and Sanitation Chair Shaun Abreu said at the hearing. 

He’s been critical of City Hall’s decision to suspend most enforcement, accusing the mayor of undermining the program with lack of resources. 

“The Mayor can’t cut corners, botch the roll out, and then turn around and blame New Yorkers for being confused, especially when he never prioritized educating them on the rules in the first place,” Councilmember Abreu said in a statement in April, after City Hall announced it was pausing the fines. 

Compliance with the rules, he said, “means investing real money in education.”

Councilmember and Sanitation Committee Chair Sean Abreu (John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)

DSNY, however, says it has a whole communications and public affairs bureau dedicated to doing outreach and education on a wide range of issues, including composting. 

“To date, these teams have knocked on 740,000 doors, hosted more than 1,000 outreach events, sent multiple mailers to every New Yorker, and held multiple mayoral press conferences and several rounds of Commissioner-level media discussions on this topic, on TV, in print, and in community and ethnic press,” the department said in an email.

The fine factor

The decision to pause most ticketing was made after DSNY issued 4,257 fines in those first two weeks of enforcement. In the lead up the year before, the agency handed out free composting bins and issued over 30,000 warnings, but people still fell short of following the rules, raising alarm bells about how clued in New Yorkers are to how composting works.

Residents must toss compostable trash—including food scraps, food-soiled paper, leaves and yard waste—in a labeled container with a lid that is at least 55 gallons, or in a DSNY brown bin that can be purchased here. 

DSNY issued the most fines to neighborhoods in the Bronx and Queens, while Manhattan saw fewer tickets, according to data the agency shared with City Limits. 

The most ticketed areas are hotspots for smaller homes, as nearly 79 percent of fined properties had fewer than eight units, accounting for more than 3,300 tickets.

Source: DSNY

Still, the city’s mandatory curbside composting program proved to be a huge success from the get-go. During the first week of enforcement, DSNY collected 2.5 million pounds of compost, a 240 percent increase when compared to the same time last year, the department told City Limits. 

So when the administration announced it would halt fines for smaller properties, some speculated the decision had more to do with politics than with a lack of compliance.

Hell Gate reported that it was Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro that took issue with the fines and ordered the pause. Republican lawmakers like Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato, who is sponsoring legislation to make curbside composting voluntary instead of mandatory, also took to social media to rally support against the penalties.

“This isn’t about the environment. It’s a cash grab, period,” Maramoto said on the social media platform X, claiming it was “just another tax for the working class.”

Owners of smaller buildings with up to eight units that fail to separate organic waste face $25 fines for their first offense, $50 for their second and $100 for their third. For buildings with more than nine units, the penalties start at $100 and can reach up to $300 with each failure to comply.

Second and third offenses are yet to be registered, but the buzz generated on social media about the fines amped up participation, environmentalists say.

“It had this initial effect of bringing it to people’s attention and that increased the participation rates,” said Justin Green, executive director of the non-profit Big Reuse. 

Since April, DSNY has collected on average 4.8 million pounds of organic waste per week, a sharp uptick from the 1 million pounds per week it collected in the same 11-week period last year, the department told City Limits.

Spreading the word

But Green and other environmental advocates agree that the threat of fines isn’t the only way to push New Yorkers to compost: the city also has to get the word out about what to do, and how to do it.

“You can’t expect the public to change their behavior without extensive efforts to explain why composting is important and how to participate,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City director at the environmental group National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The Council is also pushing for $7 million in the upcoming budget deal to continue funding the Community Composting Program for All, which supports neighborhood organizations that run organic waste collection initiatives, some of them decades old. 

(Photo by Adi Talwar)

City Hall cut funds for these groups in 2023 as part of its belt-tightening measures at the time, though the Council restored much of it in last year’s budget. Community Composting plays a key role in public education and can help with curbside collection compliance, supporters argue. 

Recycling organic waste is good for the environment, and it saves New Yorkers money. Instead of spending tax dollars to transport waste into landfills outside the city, where it releases large quantities of carbon dioxide that drives climate change, materials can get repurposed and used for more environmentally friendly uses.

That includes turning it into compost so it can become plant fertilizer, and processing the waste to generate alternative forms of electricity that emit fewer greenhouse gasses.

But Goldstein says efforts to educate the public around the importance of organic waste recycling “have been minimal.”

DSNY disputes that. In addition to door knocking, outreach events, press conferences and printed mailers, the agency says it’s been working with community composting organizations to get the word out, and issued more than 11,000 warnings since the end of April to let residential properties know enforcement is in effect. 

Community composters like Nando Rodriguez ,who runs the environmental program at Brotherhood Sister Sol (BroSis), applauds these efforts. But more can always be done, he added, including more funding for outreach and investing in community composting.

“We live in a fast paced city. So the easier we can make it for residents to separate their waste and compost, the more people we will empower to become more sustainable,” Rodriguez said.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post As NYC Reaches Budget Deal, Lawmakers Question Lack of Funding for Composting Outreach appeared first on City Limits.

By COLLEEN SLEVIN, Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — A man accused of hurling Molotov cocktails at a group of people who were demonstrating in Boulder, Colorado, in support of Israeli hostages pleaded not guilty Friday to federal hate crime charges.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman was indicted earlier this week on 12 hate crime counts in the June 1 attack. He is accused of trying to kill eight people who were hurt by the Molotov cocktails and others who were nearby.

Investigators say Soliman told them he intended to kill the roughly 20 participants at the weekly demonstration on Boulder’s Pearl Street pedestrian mall. But he threw just two of his over two dozen Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine.”

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Soliman, who is also being prosecuted in state court for attempted murder and other charges, told investigators he tried to buy a gun but was not able to because he was not a “legal citizen.”

He posed as a gardener, wearing a construction vest, to get close to the group before launching the attack, according to court documents. He was also indicted for having explosives, which was included in the hate crime counts.

Federal authorities say Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been living in the U.S. illegally with his family.

Soliman is being represented in state and federal court by public defenders who do not comment on their cases to the media.

Prosecutors say the victims were targeted because of their perceived or actual national origin.

At a hearing last week, Soliman’s defense attorney, David Kraut, urged Magistrate Judge Kathryn Starnella not to allow the case to move forward. Kraut said the alleged attack was not a hate crime. He said it was motivated by Soliman’s opposition to Zionism, the movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel.

An attack motivated by someone’s political views is not considered a hate crime under federal law.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican plan to expand private school vouchers nationwide was dealt a major setback Friday when the Senate parliamentarian said the proposal would run afoul of procedural rules.

The years-in-the-making plan would have created a federal tax credit supporting scholarships to help families send their children to private schools or other options beyond their local public schools. But in an overnight announcement, the Senate parliamentarian advised against including the proposal in President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill.

It added to mounting problems for Republicans as key proposals were deemed ineligible for the filibuster-proof reconciliation package. The parliamentarian’s rulings are advisory but are rarely, if ever, ignored. It’s unclear if Republicans will try to rewrite the provisions or simply drop them from the bill.

Another education plan deemed ineligible for reconciliation would have exempted religious colleges from a federal endowment tax. The proposal sought to raise the tax rate on wealthier colleges’ endowments while carving out religious institutions like Hillsdale College, a conservative, Christian school in Michigan and an ally of the Trump administration.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said, “We have been successful in removing parts of this bill that hurt families and workers, but the process is not over, and Democrats are continuing to make the case against every provision in this Big, Beautiful Betrayal of a bill that violates Senate rules.”

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School voucher provision had been seen as a win for supporters

The school voucher provision was seen as a breakthrough victory for proponents who have been pushing the idea for years. A similar plan failed to gain support from Congress in 2019 when it was championed by Betsy DeVos, the education secretary during Trump’s first term. Campaigning for his second term, Trump again promised to deliver some form of “universal school choice.”

Under the reconciliation plan, donors who gave money or stock to K-12 scholarship programs would receive 100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills. It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes they would usually face if they donated or transferred their stock.

Nearly all families would qualify to receive scholarships except those making more than three times their area’s median income.

A House version of the bill allowed up to $5 billion in tax credits a year, running through 2029. The Senate version reduced it to $4 billion but included no end date.

Supporters said the proposal would expand education options for families across the country, offering alternatives to students in areas with lower-performing public schools. Opponents said it would siphon money from public schools and open the door for fraud and abuse.

Republican-led states have similar programs

Similar scholarship and voucher programs have proliferated in Republican-led states such as Texas, which recently passed a $1 billion program. States have increasingly offered vouchers to families beyond only the neediest ones, contributing to budget concerns as expenses rapidly pile up.

The Senate’s college endowment proposal sought to raise a tax on schools’ investment income, from 1.4% now to 4% or 8% depending on their wealth. It would apply only to colleges with endowments of at least $500,000 per student, and it excluded all religious institutions. It would have exempted a small number of colleges, including Hillsdale, which lobbied against it.

Some small colleges that would have been hit hard by the proposal are now hopeful that Republicans will carve out an exemption for all smaller schools.

“The religious schools exemption showed senators were concerned about the endowment tax hike’s impact on small colleges,” said Lori White, president of DePauw University, a private liberal arts school in Indiana. “After the parliamentarian’s rulings, the best way to protect those and other small institutions from that impact is now to exempt all colleges with fewer than 5,000 undergraduate students.”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By ALEXA ST. JOHN, Associated Press

Weather experts are warning that hurricane forecasts will be severely hampered by the upcoming cutoff of key data from U.S. Department of Defense satellites, the latest Trump administration move with potential consequences for the quality of forecasting.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it would discontinue the “ingest, processing and distribution” of data collected by three weather satellites that the agency jointly runs with the Defense Department. The data is used by scientists, researchers and forecasters, including at the National Hurricane Center.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the government planned to cut off the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s microwave data by Monday. The Defense Department referred questions to the Air Force, which referred them to the Navy, which did not immediately provide comment. NOAA did not immediately respond to a message.

Unlike traditional weather satellites, the microwave data helps peer under a regular image of a hurricane or a tropical cyclone to see what is going on inside the storm, and it is especially helpful at night.

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The news is especially noteworthy during the ongoing hurricane season and as lesser storms have become more frequent, deadly and costly as climate change is worsened by the burning of fossil fuels.

Microwave imagery allows researchers and forecasters to see the center of the storm. Experts say that can help in detecting the rapid intensification of storms and in more accurately plotting the likely path of dangerous weather.

“If a hurricane, let’s say, is approaching the Gulf Coast, it’s a day away from making landfall, it’s nighttime,” said Union of Concerned Scientists science fellow Marc Alessi. “We will no longer be able to say, OK, this storm is definitely undergoing rapid intensification, we need to update our forecasts to reflect that.”

Other microwave data will be available but only roughly half as much, hurricane specialist Michael Lowry said in a blog post. He said that greatly increases the odds that forecasters will miss rapid intensification, underestimate intensity or misplace the storm.

That “will severely impede and degrade hurricane forecasts for this season and beyond, affecting tens of millions of Americans who live along its hurricane-prone shorelines,” he said.

University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy called the loss of data “alarmingly bad news” in a post on Bluesky.

“Microwave data are already relatively sparse, so any loss — even gradual as satellites or instruments fail — is a big deal; but to abruptly end three active functioning satellites is insanity.”

NOAA and its National Weather Service office have been the target of several cuts and changes in President Donald Trump’s second term. The Department of Government Efficiency gutted the agency’s workforce, local field offices and funding.

Already, hurricane forecasts were anticipated to be less accurate this year because weather balloons launches have been curtailed because of the lack of staffing.

“What happened this week is another attempt by the Trump administration to sabotage our weather and climate infrastructure,” Alessi said.

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.