Sanit. Dept. pitches new carting plan

The city Wednesday released its much-anticipated plan to overhaul the private hauler industry — just days after the NYPD handed out 1,070 summonses to commercial garbage truck operators for a range of safety violations.

In the plan, the city Department of Sanitation is proposing a commercial waste collection zones system that limits private carting companies to specific zones. It should be implemented within the next three years, Sanitation Kathryn Garcia said.

“The city’s current commercial waste carting system has proven itself to be inefficient, unsafe and unsustainable,” Garcia said Wednesday. “The Commercial Waste Zones plan is a comprehensive blueprint to create a safe and efficient collection system for commercial waste that provides high quality, low cost service while advancing our zero-waste goals.”

Private carting critics saluted the pitch, calling it an “rare opportunity to holistically reform a broken system.”

“It’s an important first step toward reforming a private carting industry that pollutes our air, landfills recyclable waste, mistreats small businesses and recklessly endangers pedestrians, bicyclists, drivers and workers alike,” the group Transform Don’t Trash NYC said in a statement.

While the DOS collects trash and recycling from residential buildings, more than 90 private carters roll across the city each night to service 100,000 businesses, driving long, overlapping and unsafe routes, according to officials.

Private carters killed 43 people between 2010 and November 2017, city data show.

Earlier this year, the city’s Business Integrity Commission — created to oversee private carters in the city — suspended the license of private hauler Sanitation Salvage after a driver was involved in two deaths within a few months. And the agency has also worked with the NYPD during a weeklong crack down of private sanitation trucks across the five boroughs that took 132 trucks out of service for racking up violations, police said.