“Composting should not be thought of like the after-school clarinet program,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Composting needs to be seen as an essential sanitation service, just like collecting the rubbish, sweeping the streets or removing the snow.”
But even before the pandemic, the program had stalled, despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Zero Waste” initiative, which aimed for a 90 percent reduction in landfill use by 2030.
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated August 6, 2020
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Why are bars linked to outbreaks?
- Think about a bar. Alcohol is flowing. It can be loud, but it’s definitely intimate, and you often need to lean in close to hear your friend. And strangers have way, way fewer reservations about coming up to people in a bar. That’s sort of the point of a bar. Feeling good and close to strangers. It’s no surprise, then, that bars have been linked to outbreaks in several states. Louisiana health officials have tied at least 100 coronavirus cases to bars in the Tigerland nightlife district in Baton Rouge. Minnesota has traced 328 recent cases to bars across the state. In Idaho, health officials shut down bars in Ada County after reporting clusters of infections among young adults who had visited several bars in downtown Boise. Governors in California, Texas and Arizona, where coronavirus cases are soaring, have ordered hundreds of newly reopened bars to shut down. Less than two weeks after Colorado’s bars reopened at limited capacity, Gov. Jared Polis ordered them to close.
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I have antibodies. Am I now immune?
- As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that’s perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it’s highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time.
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I’m a small-business owner. Can I get relief?
- The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don’t know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all.
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What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work?
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
Advocates pointed to the program’s limited scope to explain why compost pickup was not considered part of the Sanitation Department’s core services when officials made budget cuts. Before the pandemic, less than half of city residents had the option to request the program’s brown bins. In the neighborhoods where bins were available, just 5 to 30 percent of residents used them.
The program had yet to reach much of South Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. (Ms. Lin, who lives in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood, has never had the option to request curbside organics pick-up.)
Composting was only offered to certain areas, which “left out a lot of Black and brown communities,” said Ceci Pineda, 30, the executive director of BK ROT, a bike-powered food-waste collection and composting service based in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Skeptics say that mandatory composting could be prohibitively pricey. A 2016 report by the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group, concluded that separate collection of organics would cost New York between $177 million and $251 million annually.
“We may make some revenue off of compost in the future, but there are still costs to collection and processing,” said Ms. Garcia, the sanitation commissioner. “It’s not free. It doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do, but it’s not free.”
