Sustainable Work, Safe Streets, and Clean Air in NYC’s Waste Industry
THE CRISIS
The commercial waste industry in New York City is highly polluting, inefficient, and disproportionately impacts communities of color and workers. Waste transfer stations are concentrated in a handful of low-income communities and communities of color already overburdened by climate impacts, where increased truck emissions can lead to severe health issues including asthma, heart disease, birth complications, and stroke.
Many workers in the commercial sector are paid poverty wages and lack benefits and full-time, permanent jobs. Grueling night shifts and dangerous conditions are also creating a street safety crisis. The number of serious and fatal crashes involving private waste haulers remains high: from 2022 – 2024, there were 61 serious crashes resulting in 103 injuries and three deaths.
THE MOVEMENT
By transforming the commercial waste industry, the Transform Don’t Trash coalition aims to reduce pollution and foster cleaner, healthier communities for all New Yorkers. As a steering committee member, ALIGN is uniting labor, environmental justice, community groups, and other advocates to raise accountability and standards in commercial waste that will save the City money, lift thousands of waste industry workers and their families out of poverty, and create new, quality jobs in recycling and recycling-reliant industries.
WHAT WE WON
In 2019, we won NYC’s Commercial Waste Zones legislation, which regulates private waste companies notorious for exploiting workers, wreaking havoc on our streets, and polluting our neighborhoods. Under the new law, the Department of Sanitation will create 20 zones across the city, selecting no more than three carters to collect trash in each commercial zone of the city. Zoned collection will cut private garbage truck traffic by more than half. In choosing waste haulers for each zone, the city will weigh companies’ past compliance with regulations and their proposals to improve safety, reduce waste, and transition to zero-emission trucks. Sanitation companies will be required to pay fair wages and provide every worker with extensive safety training. Carters will also be required to dump their waste only at facilities that meet rigorous safety and health standards.
WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING FOR
Our Transform Don’t Trash NYC coalition, which played a critical role in passing Commercial Waste Zones, is calling for an urgent and equitable rollout of the full zone system for safe working conditions, safe streets, and clean air. More than 5 years after Local Law 199 was passed, just one commercial waste zone has been implemented — a pilot program introduced in Queens in January 2025. We’re calling for no more delays — Mayor Adams and the Department of Sanitation must implement and enforce the Commercial Waste Zones law across all 20 zones.