So who are they? Annie White is the Director of Coalition for Resource Recovery and Global Green’s New York office. Maggie Clarke is a “Zero Waste” researcher. Resa A. Dimino is special assistant in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and contributor to the Solid Waste Management plan. All were in attendance at last night's Talkin’ Trash panel, organized by Science Writers in New York.

On my way to Talkin' Trash I forgot my thermos, of course, and ended up getting coffee in a cardboard cup. As I threw the cup in the trash I made my apologies to the recycling deities and headed to the conference wondering why New York can't recycle used paper cups. According to Annie White they can and she has done so with the aid of Pratt & Starbucks. 

White placed paper cup receptacles in seven Starbucks locations in Chelsea and the West Village. These cups were then transported to the Center for Sustainable Design at Pratt in Staten Island where they were recycled and met their goal of 80 percent purity for the material. In April the program will announce plans to upscale the project.

I’m pretty excited about the push to recycle fiber food containers given my guilt concerning my own cardboard cup consumption. Still, I must admit I was befuddled by an earlier inadvertent encounter with White’s recycling scheme. I noticed the distinctive blue recycling bags of cups set out next to the corrugated cardboard in front of a Starbucks in the Village. For sometime after that I had the mistaken impression that New York City recycled paper cups. Despite my initial confusion I’m all for White’s project and hope it someday will be New York City policy.

Maggie Clarke also researches what more can be done about reducing, reusing and recycling in New York City. She has studied recycling patterns in all of the boroughs of New York. Clarke says that only 15 percent of waste is currently recycled. She also notes that there is an 83 percent correlation between rate of recycling and level of income and an 84 percent correlation between recycling and households where a female is the primary head. In addition, Clarke explores methods of reducing waste and encouraging individuals to practice the three R’s.

Similarly, Resa Dimino researches sustainable waste management and is a lead author of the Department of Environmental Conservation report, Beyond Waste, in which she reviews current policy and sets forth a plan for improvement. Dimino’s recommendations include product and packaging stewardship wherein companies are responsible for the disposal of the products and packaging they produce. The idea is that the step will encourage companies to design with environmental impact in mind. 

The report is available on the website and is as fresh as the day it was released, as Dimino says, since NYC has yet to implement their instructions. There should be public hearings in May during which New York will have the opportunity to hearken to these female scientists.

As an aside, people should also take note of the men on the panel, Eric Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Dietmar Offenhuber of the MIT Trash Track program. 

Image courtesy of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

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