MTA failed to follow recycling law, losing $800K in major trash fail: report

MTA workers ignored basic recycling laws — sending hundreds of tons of recyclables to landfills and losing $800,000 in savings on its trash-hauling contract over five years, according to a report released Tuesday.Workers at facilities owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — which often touts its services as eco-friendly — weren’t separating recyclables from regular trash, the new report from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s inspector general found.In rare cases the items were separated, the contracted waste hauler mixed cardboard and paper back in with garbage, the report said.The amount of cardboard and paper the waste hauler recycled dropped by almost 80% between 2018 and 2023.“The fact that the Carting Company commingled recyclables and Waste from the facilities serviced by single‑compartment, rear load garbage trucks is quite troubling because almost all agency locations assigned recycling containers – 104 out of 107, or 97% – were serviced by these trucks,” the report said.MTA board records show that Action Carting Environmental Services, a New Jersey‑based firm, won a refuse and recycling contract in 2019 worth about $39.2 million, and later received a two‑year extension valued at $19.3 millionThe deal required workers to keep cardboard and paper separate from regular garbage by using a dedicated recycling truck and sometimes gave the MTA a credit for the recycling depending on market prices.But even when MTA staff set cardboard and paper aside workers, the contractor frequently loaded the recycling into the same single‑compartment garbage trucks used for trash, according to the investigation by IG Daniel Cort.The trucking company reported it recycled 793 tons of cardboard and paper in 2018, the report said.

That dropped to 165 tons in 2024, according to the IG — the same year the MTA board voted to extend the contract with Action Carting.The contract even estimated recycling should have been much higher at ...