Report: Bloomberg Plans Food Waste Compost Program That Could Become Mandatory

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- If Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, you might have to start separating food scraps out from your trash.

A New York Times report Sunday said the mayor plans to being collecting scraps for composting, after high participation in recent pilot programs.

The newspaper also said Bloomberg will hire a composting plant to handle 100,000 tons of food scraps per year. The plant will be used to turn the waste into biogas, which could be used for electrical generation, the paper reported.

The program will start off as voluntary, but officials predicted in the newspaper that composting will become mandatory in the next few years.

If composting does become mandatory, city residents who fail to separate out their food scraps could get a ticket – much like those who do not recycle paper, plastic, glass and metal.

Pino, a restaurant owner in the Bronx, told 1010 WINS' Gene Michaels he does not like the plan.

"It creates difficulty for all of us," he said, "not only because we have to separate – also economically, because we have to buy new containers. We have to select them. We have to put times on it."

Pino also made a point of criticizing Bloomberg and his policies.

"The mayor has always been like that," he said. "The mayor has always cared to do things in his own way. He doesn't consider the small person or the little person. He just does whatever he thinks is best for himself."

Mayor Bloomberg leaves office at the end of the year his successor could do away with the program, the paper reported. But Democratic mayoral candidates Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio have already expressed support for making it mandatory, the paper reported.

San Francisco and Seattle already have mandatory composting programs in place, the paper pointed out.

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