Got yourself a dreaded case of the Mondays? Start your week off right by catching up on last week's episode of the Hell Gate Podcast. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In April 2025, New York City got serious about composting, as the Department of Sanitation implemented its first-ever mandatory curbside composting program. In order to divert food and yard waste generated in residential buildings from landfills (per the report, organic materials make up a third of the City's waste stream), the DSNY program initially included fines aimed at tamping out noncompliance. According to an Independent Budget Office report released on Friday, the push worked…but it worked best when those fines were actually being handed out, before former Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro stepped in to put the kibosh on enforcement, three weeks into the program.