Councilman David G. Greenfield is introducing legislation in the City Council today requiring the city to provide non-public schools, including yeshivas, with the same trash and recycling collection services that public schools currently receive. The proposed law, which is part of Greenfield’s push for the state and city to provide more equitable treatment towards non-public schools, will also go a long way towards keeping local streets clean and reducing the city’s rodent population. While public schools receive daily trash collection services, many private schools currently only receive the same service two or three days a week.
The bill aims to address disparities in how often the city provides trash collection at private schools compared with public schools. It would require the city Department of Sanitation to collect trash and recyclables from private schools “with the same frequency of collection provided to any public schools with a comparable student population” within the same community district. If there is no nearby comparable school, the city will provide collection services at the same frequency as at the majority of public schools in the same district.
“This bill provides fairness to private schools and yeshivas for a vital municipal service and will help reduce the amount of trash and garbage on city streets, especially in neighborhoods with many non-public schools. This will also allow school leaders to focus on how to best educate our children, and not whether the next trash collection will occur within a reasonable amount of time,” said Greenfield.
The bill was crafted after Greenfield heard complaints from parents and yeshiva leaders who have grown frustrated with bags of garbage piling up on school property, creating problems with odor, litter and rodents. Greenfield was informed by Heshie Dembitzer, executive director of Bobover Yeshiva Bnei Zion, that a handful of the community’s larger yeshivas successfully made an arrangement with the city nearly a decade ago and now receive daily trash collection. While his yeshiva was part of that arrangement, Dembitzer suggested that Greenfield push for this same service to be extended to all private schools in New York City.
“We have tons of garbage every day, so three days without pickup means hundreds of bags of trash we must deal with. They get ripped apart by animals and the trash ends up all over the street, so this would be a big plus and help make the community much cleaner. I applaud Councilman Greenfield for moving forward on this issue in hopes of resolving it for every school in the city,” said Dembitzer.
“Parents of students who attend Yeshiva pay the same taxes as public school parents and are entitled to the same services and the same clean streets,” added Greenfield.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
Some of those Yeshivas have a lot of extra trash because they also have a wedding hall. The Hall, as a commercial site, would not be eligible for any NYC sanitation pickups. Instead they would have to pay for private sanitation.
Go to one of those Yeshivas and ask to see where they keep separate trash for the Yeshiva and the Hall…