January 10, 2020 • 20 mins
A warning for those listening, this first story is pretty gruesome. A 25 year-old Michigan man named Kevin Bacon has been murdered allegedly at the hands of Mark Latunski. They found each other on a dating app, met on Christmas Eve, and days later Bacon was found in Latunski’s basement hanging from the rafters by his ankles and his throat slit. Latunski also allegedly admitted to cutting off and eating part of Bacon’s body… his testicles. Latunski’s attorney is seeking an insanity defense for his client. For more on this story we speak to Michelle Myers, Kevin’s best friend and roommate, and she’ll tell us more about the loss of her friend.
Next, New York City has a garbage problem and a lot of it has to do with the failures in their recycling program. For nearly two decades New York City has almost completely outsourced its trash burden to other communities and have fallen short on ambitious recycling and waste reduction goals that other major American cities have accomplished. Politico New York has published a five-part series examining all the aspects of why all this garbage has become such a problem in the city. Sally Goldenberg, NY City Hall Bureau Chief, and Danielle Muoio, NY City Hall Reporter for Politico, join us for more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday, January. Hi'm Oscar Ramiraz in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. A warning for those listening,
this first story is pretty gruesome. Twenty year old Michigan
man named Kevin Bacon has been murdered allegedly at the
hands of Mark Latunski. They found each other on a
(00:21):
dating app, met on Christmas Eve, and days later, Bacon
was found in Latunsky's basement, hanging from the rafters by
his ankles and his throat slit. Latunsky also allegedly admitted
to cutting off and eating part of Bacon's body, his testicles.
Latunsky's attorney is seeking an insanity defense for his client.
For more on this story, we speak to Michelle Myers,
(00:43):
Kevin's best friend and roommate, and she'll tell us more
about the loss of her friend next. New York City
has a garbage problem, and a lot of it has
to do with the failures in the recycling program. For
nearly two decades, New York City has almost completely outsourced
trash burden to other communities and have fallen short on
ambitious recycling and waste reduction goals that other major American
(01:05):
cities have accomplished. Politico New York has published a five
part series examining all the aspects of why all this
garbage has become such a problem in the city. Sally Goldenberg,
New York City Hall Bureau Chief, and Danielle Moyo, New
York City Hall reporter for Politico join us for more.
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. As a person,
(01:30):
Kevin was very open. He was just the kind of
guy we could sit and talk for hours just about anything.
And he was very like philosophical, so he and I
would just kind of, I don't know, have our own
intuition about things and just sit and talk for hours
on and about things. Joining us now is Michelle Myers,
best friend and roommate of Kevin Bacon, who is the
(01:52):
victim of a gruesome murder at the hands of a
man named Marc Latoonski. Michelle, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you. I want to start by saying,
you know, I'm sorry for your loss, and I know
that this is a pretty gruesome story that we're gonna
talk about, but we just appreciate you coming on and
sharing your story and sharing the story of Kevin as well,
(02:12):
the way this starts off, Kevin is from Michigan. He
met a man on a dating app called Grinder. He
met David Letunsky on Christmas Eve, and it wasn't until
a few days later that police found the body of
Kevin Bacon. He was in Mark Latunsky's home. He was
found naked. He was hanging from the rafters by his ankles.
(02:34):
Latunsky told police that he had slit the throat of
Kevin with a knife, and then he also allegedly admitted
to eating part of Kevin Bacon's body. As I said,
the details of this are pretty gruesome, Michelle, Can you
start us off and just tell us anything that you know,
details that have investigators or police have shared with you
about this so far. It was like Christmas Day and
(02:56):
he didn't show up for breakfast and he was living
at my house. He went out for the night and said, hey,
I'll be out late, and I said, all right, that's fine,
and then he said that, um, he'd like to hang
out with me later, me and another friend. And I said,
no problem. And I texted him he saying, Hey, it's
okay that you can come over to our friend's house
after you're done, And he texted me back probably forty
(03:19):
five minutes later, which was about six thirteen pm that day,
and said, oh, well, I'm going to be out late.
I'm having a lot of fun, so I probably won't
see you tonight essentially, and I so that's fine, I'll
see you later. But uh, it's weird with eye message
is like if they turned her phone off, it never
(03:39):
gets delivered. So I didn't notice until morning that it
never got delivered, that your messages back to him never
got delivered. Yeah, So like he sent me a text
at six thirteen and I responded by six three, and
his phone was already shut off by then. The police
later found Kevin's car at a family dollar store, where
his phone, his wallet, and there was some other clothes inside,
(04:01):
So we don't know exactly when the car was put
there and he was texting you up until that point.
Did it seemed like those texts were coming from Kevin himself? Yeah,
just from the mannerism, Like there's just ways that he
words things, So I do believe it was him responding if.
I mean, there's very well that he may have told
him to respond as himself, but I really don't believe that,
(04:26):
but we're still trying to figure out maybe he was there.
We're trying to wait for a toxicology report essentially to
see if maybe he was drugged and responded as himself
still and then his phone was turned off shortly after.
What's interesting is I got a lead from someone that
said that they saw an suv around six thirty. There's
(04:47):
a right aid right next the door, and they had
saw it around that same time. They drew me a
picture where they thought they saw the suv, which happened
to be the same spot where we found his car later.
And we found out res the way that let Townski
has an suv, so like right around six thirty, because
it kind of gives us a time frame that, you know,
(05:08):
it would have been around the same time that they
saw his car parked essentially adjacent to Kevin's car, and
then that's where the police were notified and we're able
to find the home there. Take us a step back
and tell us who Kevin was. Because Kevin was only
twenty five years old, he's very young. He was a
hair stylist. He was also going to the University of
(05:30):
Michigan Flint. I believe tell us who he was. So
Kevin was a hair stylist. We both went to high
school together and then he went to hair school and
then he worked as a hairstylist at J. C. Penny
for a few years, and then he wanted to go
back to school to do like clinical psychology, so he
was majoring in psychology. Um, he only had three semesters left.
(05:53):
As a person, Kevin was very open. He was just
the kind of guy We could sit and talk for
hours just about anything. And he was very like philosophical,
so he and I would just kind of, I don't know,
have our own intuition about things and just sit and
talk for hours on end about things. But he was
a very open and transparent guy. The man who is
(06:14):
alleged to have done all of this Mark lit Tunsky.
He does have a history of a mental illness. There's
reports that have said that he's been diagnosed with major depression,
paranoid schizophrenia, traits of personality disorder, and even in his
arraignment hearing you know, he was just talking about how
his name isn't Mark Lion Tunsky. He believes he's part
of some British family clan, the Thomas Klan things like that.
(06:39):
I think Kevin's father said that he suspects that he
might be using this mental illness card to kind of
get out of some of this stuff. How do you
feel about all this? How does the family feel? What
can you tell us on that? I'm kind of on
the same page. I'm sure that you know, like I said,
some of the psychosis I'm sure plays in a roll
into it. But I think that he's used this card
(07:00):
and his last trial with the whole kidnapping trial with
the custody of his kids, and I think that he's
going to try to see how far he can get
because it's really the only angle he has for um.
I guess. So I'm on the same page essentially with
his dad. Yeah, I mean Letnski's attorney, his name is
Doug cor when he is said that he is seeking
an insanity defense for his client. He said, just by
(07:24):
the nature of the crime itself. As we mentioned, there's
this element of cannibalism where he even admitted to have
eaten parts of Kevin's body, just really unthinkable stuff. And
he says, I have to send him for some type
of criminal evaluation for this, and that's really one of
the hardest parts about this, this is really the story
is going to be ongoing for some time. This evaluation
(07:44):
they said, could take anywhere from sixty to ninety days.
So you know, it's just really tough to have to
deal with all this when you want answers and you
just kind of want to know exactly what happened, and
obviously you want the person who did this to be
brought to justice, right And I actually heard that it
maybe sixty to ninety days until he's admitted to the facility,
and then that he can be held for up to
(08:06):
a year at that facility. I did see some of
that of that facility is backlogged right now with other stuff,
so it could be sometime until that happens. It's just
a horrible story to hear. Michelle, as I said, sorry
for your loss and obviously for the family of Kevin
Bacon as well. Michelle Myers, thank you very much for
joining us and sharing your story. No problem that he
(08:35):
wanted to slash the amount of waste we're sending to
landfills and incinerators by so that would be a very
small fraction, only three sixty thousand tons. But as we
explore in our series, the amount of waste we're shipping
out of the city has actually gone up since he
made that pledge. Joining us now is Sally Goldenberg, New
(08:55):
York City Hall bureau chief for Politico, and Danielle Moyo,
New York's City Hall reporter for Politico. Thanks for joining his, ladies,
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having him. We're gonna
be talking about a series of stories that you guys
have been working on about recycling and the ongoing trash
problem in New York. That's been something that administrations have
(09:18):
been trying to get a handle on for some time now.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg the current Mayor Bill de Blasio
have all kind of promised to tackle climate change and
all sorts of stuff, and this is a problem kind
of rolled into that somehow, because you know, a lot
of the trash and disposal and all this stuff creates
greenhouse gases methane gases depending on the landfills and the
(09:40):
method that trash is being recycled and disposed of. So,
first of all, tell us a little bit about the
series of stories that you're doing on the recycling failures
in New York. So we're doing a five part series
looking at basically New York City's garbage crisis, and the
whole basis of the story is that Mayor Bill de
(10:02):
Blasio pledged in that he wanted to slash the amount
of waste we're sending to landfills and incinerators by So
that would be a very small fraction, only three sixty
thousand tons. But as we explore in our series, the
amount of waste we're shipping out of the city has
actually gone up since he made that pledge. So we're
(10:25):
looking at this from a variety lenses to kind of
explore why we are so far away from that goal
and basically what could get New York more on track
with that pledge. So give us the big overview, then
what is the overall goal? You mentioned a number there,
What is that number that we're trying to reach with
(10:46):
reducing the waste and recycling at all. So di Blasio
pledged to cut waste by by So what that would
mean is an export of three hundred sixty thousand tons
of garbage that year, and for comparisons sake, last year
the city exported three point to five million tons, So
(11:06):
you know, a tremendous decrease by twenty and he made
the bloge in and we point out in the article
that the export of trash is only increased since then,
so he's going in the wrong direction. There are many
reasons for that. The one that we've worked about today,
which is a big part of the waste stream is
food and yard waste. It makes up about one third
(11:29):
of the waste stream, and it basically doesn't get recycled.
There are some small pockets of the city that do composting,
turning it into fertilizer, but for the most part it
goes into sanitation trucks and then it gets sent to
landfills and incinerators. So I think the single biggest thing
he could do is turn that into some sort of
(11:49):
citywide either a mandate or just a citywide practice of
recycling food waste, which is called organic waste. What areas
have gotten this right? Because I'm sure when somebody's doing
it right, other cities kind of take it as a
model and try to build off from there. So who's
doing it right? And then where is New York getting
it wrong? So the two cities that we focus on
(12:11):
in the series are Seattle and San Francisco, And these
are cities that had voluntary organic collection programs and have
since for a long time now had a mandatory of
program in place, and you can really see the effect
of that. Those are two cities that are sending more
to recycling and reuse than they are to landfill. So
(12:33):
they have recycling rates of six per cent. New York,
by comparison, has an ekey percenter recycling rate, And a
huge reason for that is because we're just not recycling
the large amount of food waste that we're sending to
landfills every year. We're do restaurants and other businesses fit
in because I'm assuming restaurants have a lot more food
waste than maybe a normal household would. Because the systems
(12:56):
are different, right, businesses and restaurants kind of operate under
a different system than regular homes and so forth. So
how does that kind of mesh together. Restaurants aren't serviced
by the city sanitation department, they use private waste tallers.
The overall commercial rate of recycling is about and a
(13:16):
very small piece of that is organics. I think it's
about one percent, But the city recently put a rule
in place that requires many more food establishments to recycle
their organic waste. Right now, it's stadiums and it's very
large establishments. But the city is expanding that rule, so
I think they're hoping that that really makes a dent inmate.
(13:37):
It won't affect that overall number that was sited at
the beginning, that three point to five million tons that
were exported this year. That's all residential waste. Right now,
Where is the majority of trash and garbage goings and
being exported out of the city. Is it going to landfills?
Is it being handled? It all gets exported because New
York City doesn't have a landfill. It had the Fresh
(13:58):
Killed Landfill and statun which closed almost twenty years ago,
and it doesn't have any waste to energy facilities what
we would you know, call incinerators. So all of the
garbage is shipped somewhere else. Some of it goes to
other parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, some goes
as far as Ohio and South Carolina, but it's basically
going it's all getting sent out of New York and
(14:21):
that also is kind of creates the cycle that contributes
to more greenhouse gases and all because it takes massive trucks,
and I think you mentioned a couple of times, you know,
just kind of the row of long haul trucks hauling
out all the trash constantly. Yes, And that's especially prevalent
in the private sector. When we're talking about the waists
(14:43):
generated by restaurants and commercial buildings, but also construction and
demo wasts. Most of that is hauled out on these
long haul trucks that are belchain diesel exhaust. The city has,
under a solid waste management plan they put in place
in two thousand six, has been able to shift most
of its waiste out by barge or by rail, but
(15:05):
they also rely on trucks in some cases, for example,
when they take residential trust to new work, that's all
by truck. And so what are officials doing now to
try to contain some of this? Obviously you mentioned build
the Blasio had some plans, things just kind of fell through.
Nothing's been really followed through on where do people stand
ring now? Because I know that local communities, I know
(15:26):
a lot of people are getting pretty mad when there's
a local school nearby and there's toxins going up in
the air. When some of these incinerators are going and
then you know some of the obviously the Fresh Kills
landfill is not there anymore, but people were getting mad
when kind of trash and everything was just percolating in
the air. Blas he was term limited, his two years
(15:46):
left in his term, and he was asked about this
story a number of times yesterday and certainly didn't give
the impression that he has some burning desire to change
the Sunday time soon. I mean, he didn't endorse it,
but you know, it was sort of a lack of
daisical response. I think that the realistic answer to that
is that it's up to the people who want to
replace him as mayor or who are just you know,
(16:08):
on an upwardly mobile track in politics in New York
who will probably end up taking this on. And there
are any number of things that could be done. The
one thing I will say to Blasio did do for
the commercial end of things is he signed a bill
intol law last year that will regulate the commercial waste
holler industry. And there were many problems with it. There
(16:30):
were identified many like safety related things unrelated to recycling,
but he and his Sanitation commissioner do believe that that
bill will make it much easier for them to oversee
the recycling rate of commercial establishments and enforce them in
terms of a mandatory organics recycling program. He hasn't committed
to that. Well, he did many years ago, but there's
(16:51):
no indication that he's going to do that. Nor has
he done some type of incentive what's known as pay
as you throw or save as you throw, where you're
sort of financially incentivized to produce less trash and recycle more.
So it wouldn't surprise me to maybe see him do
like a public education campaign that type of thing. But
I have a feeling that the Marrow candidates to want
(17:14):
to replace him will take this up because it is
an issue that New Yorkers talk about all the time.
It's all the trash and you know, the environmental impact
in the polity of life impact of having trash everywhere,
and the public information campaign is usually in a very
important part of that. One of the officials you spoke
to says, it just seems like recycling in New York
City is stuck in their early nineties, So it seems
(17:35):
like it really requires a complete overhaul. There needs to
be more infrastructure to help get rid of the waste
and recycle the majority of it because the majority of
it can be and it's just not being recycled. And
then on the other part of it, you know, the public,
as you mentioned, with some of these food waste things,
they need to be taught how to compost, how to
properly separate the way so that it can be recycled
(17:56):
properly too. So there's a lot of issues here at play.
I think there is confusion for some New Yorkers on
what they can recycle. You know, it was only a
few years back they started taking rigid plastics like the
plastic clamshell containers you get when you get take out,
that only recently was allowed to be recycled, and people
(18:17):
may not know that. Something I didn't know that I
learned reporting this was that you can recycle aluminum foil.
And obviously composting there's even more education, like you said,
because people haven't done it before, so there's an even
steeper learning curve. So I do think some of this
is just people not knowing exactly what to do. But
there's also a big part of this is the need
(18:38):
to reduce the amount of waste we're producing in the
first place, and Sally mentioned something that other cities like
Seattle in San Francisco used as a pay as you
throw model to basically incentivize you to be putting less
in your garbage because you're paying for it. And that's
something that the city had originally committed to studying and
looking at, and it became plitically untenable. We heard from
(19:03):
the speakers saying he's very opposed to charging people for garbage,
and that's something we're going to explore in this series
as well. But I think just as important as it
is to get New Yorkers to do the right thing
on recycling, reducing the voice in the first place is
a key part that hasn't really entered the public conversation
as much. Sally Goldenberg, New York City Hall bureau chief
(19:27):
of Politico, and Daniel Moyo, New York City Hall reporter
for Politico, thank you both very much for joining us.
Thank you, thank you. That's it for this week. Join
us on social media at Daily Dive plot on both
Twitter and Instagram. Give us a comment, give us a rating,
(19:49):
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us and I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of The Daily Dive was produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Soren, Tina him
Oscar Ramirez, and this was her Daily die
It's Friday, January. Hi'm Oscar Ramiraz in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. A warning for those listening,
this first story is pretty gruesome. Twenty year old Michigan
man named Kevin Bacon has been murdered allegedly at the
hands of Mark Latunski. They found each other on a
(00:21):
dating app, met on Christmas Eve, and days later, Bacon
was found in Latunsky's basement, hanging from the rafters by
his ankles and his throat slit. Latunsky also allegedly admitted
to cutting off and eating part of Bacon's body, his testicles.
Latunsky's attorney is seeking an insanity defense for his client.
For more on this story, we speak to Michelle Myers,
(00:43):
Kevin's best friend and roommate, and she'll tell us more
about the loss of her friend next. New York City
has a garbage problem, and a lot of it has
to do with the failures in the recycling program. For
nearly two decades, New York City has almost completely outsourced
trash burden to other communities and have fallen short on
ambitious recycling and waste reduction goals that other major American
(01:05):
cities have accomplished. Politico New York has published a five
part series examining all the aspects of why all this
garbage has become such a problem in the city. Sally Goldenberg,
New York City Hall Bureau Chief, and Danielle Moyo, New
York City Hall reporter for Politico join us for more.
It's news without the noise. Let's dive in. As a person,
(01:30):
Kevin was very open. He was just the kind of
guy we could sit and talk for hours just about anything.
And he was very like philosophical, so he and I
would just kind of, I don't know, have our own
intuition about things and just sit and talk for hours
on and about things. Joining us now is Michelle Myers,
best friend and roommate of Kevin Bacon, who is the
(01:52):
victim of a gruesome murder at the hands of a
man named Marc Latoonski. Michelle, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you. I want to start by saying,
you know, I'm sorry for your loss, and I know
that this is a pretty gruesome story that we're gonna
talk about, but we just appreciate you coming on and
sharing your story and sharing the story of Kevin as well,
(02:12):
the way this starts off, Kevin is from Michigan. He
met a man on a dating app called Grinder. He
met David Letunsky on Christmas Eve, and it wasn't until
a few days later that police found the body of
Kevin Bacon. He was in Mark Latunsky's home. He was
found naked. He was hanging from the rafters by his ankles.
(02:34):
Latunsky told police that he had slit the throat of
Kevin with a knife, and then he also allegedly admitted
to eating part of Kevin Bacon's body. As I said,
the details of this are pretty gruesome, Michelle, Can you
start us off and just tell us anything that you know,
details that have investigators or police have shared with you
about this so far. It was like Christmas Day and
(02:56):
he didn't show up for breakfast and he was living
at my house. He went out for the night and said, hey,
I'll be out late, and I said, all right, that's fine,
and then he said that, um, he'd like to hang
out with me later, me and another friend. And I said,
no problem. And I texted him he saying, Hey, it's
okay that you can come over to our friend's house
after you're done, And he texted me back probably forty
(03:19):
five minutes later, which was about six thirteen pm that day,
and said, oh, well, I'm going to be out late.
I'm having a lot of fun, so I probably won't
see you tonight essentially, and I so that's fine, I'll
see you later. But uh, it's weird with eye message
is like if they turned her phone off, it never
(03:39):
gets delivered. So I didn't notice until morning that it
never got delivered, that your messages back to him never
got delivered. Yeah, So like he sent me a text
at six thirteen and I responded by six three, and
his phone was already shut off by then. The police
later found Kevin's car at a family dollar store, where
his phone, his wallet, and there was some other clothes inside,
(04:01):
So we don't know exactly when the car was put
there and he was texting you up until that point.
Did it seemed like those texts were coming from Kevin himself? Yeah,
just from the mannerism, Like there's just ways that he
words things, So I do believe it was him responding if.
I mean, there's very well that he may have told
him to respond as himself, but I really don't believe that,
(04:26):
but we're still trying to figure out maybe he was there.
We're trying to wait for a toxicology report essentially to
see if maybe he was drugged and responded as himself
still and then his phone was turned off shortly after.
What's interesting is I got a lead from someone that
said that they saw an suv around six thirty. There's
(04:47):
a right aid right next the door, and they had
saw it around that same time. They drew me a
picture where they thought they saw the suv, which happened
to be the same spot where we found his car later.
And we found out res the way that let Townski
has an suv, so like right around six thirty, because
it kind of gives us a time frame that, you know,
(05:08):
it would have been around the same time that they
saw his car parked essentially adjacent to Kevin's car, and
then that's where the police were notified and we're able
to find the home there. Take us a step back
and tell us who Kevin was. Because Kevin was only
twenty five years old, he's very young. He was a
hair stylist. He was also going to the University of
(05:30):
Michigan Flint. I believe tell us who he was. So
Kevin was a hair stylist. We both went to high
school together and then he went to hair school and
then he worked as a hairstylist at J. C. Penny
for a few years, and then he wanted to go
back to school to do like clinical psychology, so he
was majoring in psychology. Um, he only had three semesters left.
(05:53):
As a person, Kevin was very open. He was just
the kind of guy We could sit and talk for
hours just about anything. And he was very like philosophical,
so he and I would just kind of, I don't know,
have our own intuition about things and just sit and
talk for hours on end about things. But he was
a very open and transparent guy. The man who is
(06:14):
alleged to have done all of this Mark lit Tunsky.
He does have a history of a mental illness. There's
reports that have said that he's been diagnosed with major depression,
paranoid schizophrenia, traits of personality disorder, and even in his
arraignment hearing you know, he was just talking about how
his name isn't Mark Lion Tunsky. He believes he's part
of some British family clan, the Thomas Klan things like that.
(06:39):
I think Kevin's father said that he suspects that he
might be using this mental illness card to kind of
get out of some of this stuff. How do you
feel about all this? How does the family feel? What
can you tell us on that? I'm kind of on
the same page. I'm sure that you know, like I said,
some of the psychosis I'm sure plays in a roll
into it. But I think that he's used this card
(07:00):
and his last trial with the whole kidnapping trial with
the custody of his kids, and I think that he's
going to try to see how far he can get
because it's really the only angle he has for um.
I guess. So I'm on the same page essentially with
his dad. Yeah, I mean Letnski's attorney, his name is
Doug cor when he is said that he is seeking
an insanity defense for his client. He said, just by
(07:24):
the nature of the crime itself. As we mentioned, there's
this element of cannibalism where he even admitted to have
eaten parts of Kevin's body, just really unthinkable stuff. And
he says, I have to send him for some type
of criminal evaluation for this, and that's really one of
the hardest parts about this, this is really the story
is going to be ongoing for some time. This evaluation
(07:44):
they said, could take anywhere from sixty to ninety days.
So you know, it's just really tough to have to
deal with all this when you want answers and you
just kind of want to know exactly what happened, and
obviously you want the person who did this to be
brought to justice, right And I actually heard that it
maybe sixty to ninety days until he's admitted to the facility,
and then that he can be held for up to
(08:06):
a year at that facility. I did see some of
that of that facility is backlogged right now with other stuff,
so it could be sometime until that happens. It's just
a horrible story to hear. Michelle, as I said, sorry
for your loss and obviously for the family of Kevin
Bacon as well. Michelle Myers, thank you very much for
joining us and sharing your story. No problem that he
(08:35):
wanted to slash the amount of waste we're sending to
landfills and incinerators by so that would be a very
small fraction, only three sixty thousand tons. But as we
explore in our series, the amount of waste we're shipping
out of the city has actually gone up since he
made that pledge. Joining us now is Sally Goldenberg, New
(08:55):
York City Hall bureau chief for Politico, and Danielle Moyo,
New York's City Hall reporter for Politico. Thanks for joining his, ladies,
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having him. We're gonna
be talking about a series of stories that you guys
have been working on about recycling and the ongoing trash
problem in New York. That's been something that administrations have
(09:18):
been trying to get a handle on for some time now.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg the current Mayor Bill de Blasio
have all kind of promised to tackle climate change and
all sorts of stuff, and this is a problem kind
of rolled into that somehow, because you know, a lot
of the trash and disposal and all this stuff creates
greenhouse gases methane gases depending on the landfills and the
(09:40):
method that trash is being recycled and disposed of. So,
first of all, tell us a little bit about the
series of stories that you're doing on the recycling failures
in New York. So we're doing a five part series
looking at basically New York City's garbage crisis, and the
whole basis of the story is that Mayor Bill de
(10:02):
Blasio pledged in that he wanted to slash the amount
of waste we're sending to landfills and incinerators by So
that would be a very small fraction, only three sixty
thousand tons. But as we explore in our series, the
amount of waste we're shipping out of the city has
actually gone up since he made that pledge. So we're
(10:25):
looking at this from a variety lenses to kind of
explore why we are so far away from that goal
and basically what could get New York more on track
with that pledge. So give us the big overview, then
what is the overall goal? You mentioned a number there,
What is that number that we're trying to reach with
(10:46):
reducing the waste and recycling at all. So di Blasio
pledged to cut waste by by So what that would
mean is an export of three hundred sixty thousand tons
of garbage that year, and for comparisons sake, last year
the city exported three point to five million tons, So
(11:06):
you know, a tremendous decrease by twenty and he made
the bloge in and we point out in the article
that the export of trash is only increased since then,
so he's going in the wrong direction. There are many
reasons for that. The one that we've worked about today,
which is a big part of the waste stream is
food and yard waste. It makes up about one third
(11:29):
of the waste stream, and it basically doesn't get recycled.
There are some small pockets of the city that do composting,
turning it into fertilizer, but for the most part it
goes into sanitation trucks and then it gets sent to
landfills and incinerators. So I think the single biggest thing
he could do is turn that into some sort of
(11:49):
citywide either a mandate or just a citywide practice of
recycling food waste, which is called organic waste. What areas
have gotten this right? Because I'm sure when somebody's doing
it right, other cities kind of take it as a
model and try to build off from there. So who's
doing it right? And then where is New York getting
it wrong? So the two cities that we focus on
(12:11):
in the series are Seattle and San Francisco, And these
are cities that had voluntary organic collection programs and have
since for a long time now had a mandatory of
program in place, and you can really see the effect
of that. Those are two cities that are sending more
to recycling and reuse than they are to landfill. So
(12:33):
they have recycling rates of six per cent. New York,
by comparison, has an ekey percenter recycling rate, And a
huge reason for that is because we're just not recycling
the large amount of food waste that we're sending to
landfills every year. We're do restaurants and other businesses fit
in because I'm assuming restaurants have a lot more food
waste than maybe a normal household would. Because the systems
(12:56):
are different, right, businesses and restaurants kind of operate under
a different system than regular homes and so forth. So
how does that kind of mesh together. Restaurants aren't serviced
by the city sanitation department, they use private waste tallers.
The overall commercial rate of recycling is about and a
(13:16):
very small piece of that is organics. I think it's
about one percent, But the city recently put a rule
in place that requires many more food establishments to recycle
their organic waste. Right now, it's stadiums and it's very
large establishments. But the city is expanding that rule, so
I think they're hoping that that really makes a dent inmate.
(13:37):
It won't affect that overall number that was sited at
the beginning, that three point to five million tons that
were exported this year. That's all residential waste. Right now,
Where is the majority of trash and garbage goings and
being exported out of the city. Is it going to landfills?
Is it being handled? It all gets exported because New
York City doesn't have a landfill. It had the Fresh
(13:58):
Killed Landfill and statun which closed almost twenty years ago,
and it doesn't have any waste to energy facilities what
we would you know, call incinerators. So all of the
garbage is shipped somewhere else. Some of it goes to
other parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, some goes
as far as Ohio and South Carolina, but it's basically
going it's all getting sent out of New York and
(14:21):
that also is kind of creates the cycle that contributes
to more greenhouse gases and all because it takes massive trucks,
and I think you mentioned a couple of times, you know,
just kind of the row of long haul trucks hauling
out all the trash constantly. Yes, And that's especially prevalent
in the private sector. When we're talking about the waists
(14:43):
generated by restaurants and commercial buildings, but also construction and
demo wasts. Most of that is hauled out on these
long haul trucks that are belchain diesel exhaust. The city has,
under a solid waste management plan they put in place
in two thousand six, has been able to shift most
of its waiste out by barge or by rail, but
(15:05):
they also rely on trucks in some cases, for example,
when they take residential trust to new work, that's all
by truck. And so what are officials doing now to
try to contain some of this? Obviously you mentioned build
the Blasio had some plans, things just kind of fell through.
Nothing's been really followed through on where do people stand
ring now? Because I know that local communities, I know
(15:26):
a lot of people are getting pretty mad when there's
a local school nearby and there's toxins going up in
the air. When some of these incinerators are going and
then you know some of the obviously the Fresh Kills
landfill is not there anymore, but people were getting mad
when kind of trash and everything was just percolating in
the air. Blas he was term limited, his two years
(15:46):
left in his term, and he was asked about this
story a number of times yesterday and certainly didn't give
the impression that he has some burning desire to change
the Sunday time soon. I mean, he didn't endorse it,
but you know, it was sort of a lack of
daisical response. I think that the realistic answer to that
is that it's up to the people who want to
replace him as mayor or who are just you know,
(16:08):
on an upwardly mobile track in politics in New York
who will probably end up taking this on. And there
are any number of things that could be done. The
one thing I will say to Blasio did do for
the commercial end of things is he signed a bill
intol law last year that will regulate the commercial waste
holler industry. And there were many problems with it. There
(16:30):
were identified many like safety related things unrelated to recycling,
but he and his Sanitation commissioner do believe that that
bill will make it much easier for them to oversee
the recycling rate of commercial establishments and enforce them in
terms of a mandatory organics recycling program. He hasn't committed
to that. Well, he did many years ago, but there's
(16:51):
no indication that he's going to do that. Nor has
he done some type of incentive what's known as pay
as you throw or save as you throw, where you're
sort of financially incentivized to produce less trash and recycle more.
So it wouldn't surprise me to maybe see him do
like a public education campaign that type of thing. But
I have a feeling that the Marrow candidates to want
(17:14):
to replace him will take this up because it is
an issue that New Yorkers talk about all the time.
It's all the trash and you know, the environmental impact
in the polity of life impact of having trash everywhere,
and the public information campaign is usually in a very
important part of that. One of the officials you spoke
to says, it just seems like recycling in New York
City is stuck in their early nineties, So it seems
(17:35):
like it really requires a complete overhaul. There needs to
be more infrastructure to help get rid of the waste
and recycle the majority of it because the majority of
it can be and it's just not being recycled. And
then on the other part of it, you know, the public,
as you mentioned, with some of these food waste things,
they need to be taught how to compost, how to
properly separate the way so that it can be recycled
(17:56):
properly too. So there's a lot of issues here at play.
I think there is confusion for some New Yorkers on
what they can recycle. You know, it was only a
few years back they started taking rigid plastics like the
plastic clamshell containers you get when you get take out,
that only recently was allowed to be recycled, and people
(18:17):
may not know that. Something I didn't know that I
learned reporting this was that you can recycle aluminum foil.
And obviously composting there's even more education, like you said,
because people haven't done it before, so there's an even
steeper learning curve. So I do think some of this
is just people not knowing exactly what to do. But
there's also a big part of this is the need
(18:38):
to reduce the amount of waste we're producing in the
first place, and Sally mentioned something that other cities like
Seattle in San Francisco used as a pay as you
throw model to basically incentivize you to be putting less
in your garbage because you're paying for it. And that's
something that the city had originally committed to studying and
looking at, and it became plitically untenable. We heard from
(19:03):
the speakers saying he's very opposed to charging people for garbage,
and that's something we're going to explore in this series
as well. But I think just as important as it
is to get New Yorkers to do the right thing
on recycling, reducing the voice in the first place is
a key part that hasn't really entered the public conversation
as much. Sally Goldenberg, New York City Hall bureau chief
(19:27):
of Politico, and Daniel Moyo, New York City Hall reporter
for Politico, thank you both very much for joining us.
Thank you, thank you. That's it for this week. Join
us on social media at Daily Dive plot on both
Twitter and Instagram. Give us a comment, give us a rating,
(19:49):
and tell us the stories that you're interested in. Follow
us and I Heart Radio or subscribe wherever you get
your podcast. This episode of The Daily Dive was produced
by Victor Wright and engineered by Tony Soren, Tina him
Oscar Ramirez, and this was her Daily die
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