Mayor Bloomberg Rethinks Recycling - NYTimes.com On recycling in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come a long way. After taking office 11 years ago, Mr. Bloomberg eliminated a major chunk of the city's recycling program to save money. Many New Yorkers were outraged. He was, they said, littering the earth as well as missing a chance to convert waste to energy. He has since become a passionate convert. With about 20,000 tons of garbage hauled from the city every day, Mr. Bloomberg has been working hard recently to restore the city's recycling program to its pre-2002 levels. On Wednesday, he announced that any rigid plastics including toys, yogurt cups, food containers and such can finally go in clear recycling bags. It is the city's biggest expansion in recycling in more than two decades. A day later, he announced that 100 restaurants in the city, ranging from the sophisticated Le Bernardin to the boisterous Chipotle eateries, have promised to start reducing their food waste by 50 percent. Some of it will be donated to food kitchens or charities like City Harvest. But a lot will go to commercial composting centers outside the city. There, the discarded leeks and potato peels can be turned into energy or compost that, ideally, could help farmers produce more leeks and potatoes. Tackling organic waste is a big task. Every year, the city adds mountains of watermelon rinds, coffee grounds and other organic plate scrapings to the waste stream. Most of it goes to landfills where it festers and sends methane pollution into the atmosphere. As alternatives, city officials are experimenting with organic recycling at 68 schools and one Manhattan apartment building. Green markets across the city accept bags of leftovers, and a new system of curbside recycling of organic garbage is scheduled to start soon in Staten Island. The city's recycling rate has yet to reach the pre-Bloomberg level of 20 percent. But the mayor wants the city to reuse 70 percent of its waste by 2030. That's a big challenge for his successors, but at least these latest efforts finally move in the right direction.