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Chamber joins business leaders in affirming commitment to maintaining an open system for commercial waste services

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Business leaders today joined New Yorkers for Responsible Waste Management (NYRWM) in affirming their ongoing commitment to opposing the Sanitation Department’s flawed proposal to restructure the commercial waste industry through a system of waste collection zones. DSNY’s latest proposal would create a series of geographic zones and award long-term contracts to more than one waste service company.

 

As business and industry stakeholders across the city have repeatedly noted, DSNY’s commercial waste zone proposals would eliminate the industry’s current open market system – which promotes choice and competition – and would lead to higher costs and poorer service for New York City’s vast array of businesses.  The latest version – zones with multiple haulers – is an untested concept that would create massive disruptions and confusion, and fail to achieve most of the city’s stated goals.

 

“DSNY must listen to the voices of business owners – especially small businesses – who already struggle financially just to keep our doors open in the communities we serve,” said Nelson Eusebio, board member at the National Supermarket Association. “New York’s small businesses simply cannot afford the unfair, unnecessary cost increases on waste services that everyone – including the city – knows will take place under any zone-based system. If the city wants to support its small business owners, it will halt this flawed proposal.”

 

“Business owners have good reason to be deeply concerned about DSNY’s commercial waste zone proposal, which will lead to higher costs and service problems at a time when so many local businesses are already under extreme stress,” said Tom Grech, executive director of the Queens Chamber of Commerce. “Both small and larger businesses prefer retaining the existing open market system of waste collection service, which ensures choice and competition to keep prices affordable, and service at high levels of quality.”

 

“What DSNY has presented as a sensible compromise would actually still be very harmful to many businesses,” said Jessica Walker, president and CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. “It would be a mistake for the city to advance this proposal.”

 

“Grocery stores – especially the small, family-owned businesses that are part of the fabric of the city’s neighborhoods – cannot afford additional cost increases,” stated Jay Peltz, General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Government Relations for the Food Industry Alliance of New York. “Higher collection costs will threaten the viability of supermarkets operating in New York City. Additional grocery store closures will worsen the food desert problem throughout the city.”

 

“New Yorkers for Responsible Waste Management joins business leaders in opposing DSNY’s flawed waste zone proposals,” said Kendall Christiansen, executive director of New Yorkers for Responsible Waste Management. “We will continue improving the commercial waste industry without upending an open-market system that continues to have widespread support across the city.”

 

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