De Blasio Talks To Compost Bin

NEW YORK CITY — A "special guest speaker" trashed Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement that compost is making a comeback in the city.

New York City will restart its curbside compost and organics program that was scrapped during the coronavirus pandemic, de Blasio said Thursday.

For details, he turned to his special guest: a brown compost bin.

The bin stayed silent for several awkward seconds.

“The bin is here…,” de Blasio said, leaning into the bit. “You know, I’m confused, I was told the bin had remarks and it’s a bin. It’s a very good-looking, sleek bin but with nothing to say.”

YES！ I can't wait to have it back.
— BobL (@BobLu6) April 22, 2021

Luckily, the silence ended as de Blasio turned to sanitation Commissioner Ed Grayson, who filled in details on the program's rebirth.

The curbside program roll out to 3.5 million New Yorkers on an "opt-in" basis with services starting in October, Grayson said.

Enrollment for the program begins in August.

Grayson also announced that the number of community composting sites will double.

"We currently have over 100 sites and we're excited to say that we expect to have over 200 sites," he said.

Those community sites collected 1.3 million pounds of organic material in the past seven months, Grayson said. He said sanitation will also pilot new "smart bins" linked with an app for access to deposit organics.

"School curbside composting is coming back to the nearly 1,000 schools that had it pre-pandemic," he added.

Beyond the news about curbside composting, the announcement also showcased de Blasio's increasingly willingness to commit to lighthearted comedic bits and poke fun at himself.

He — an infamous Red Sox fan — recently donned a Yankees hat while announcing a vaccination site at the stadium, rode the Cyclone to promote Coney Island's reopening and filled up announcements with whale-sized puns.

The shift in attitude comes as de Blasio — who for years eschewed gimmicky events — tries to promote the city's comeback from the pandemic. It was so striking a shift that the New York Times detailed it in a recent story titled "Why Bill de Blasio Is Finally Having Fun as Mayor."

CBS reporter Marcia Kramer on Thursday, noting de Blasio slid an "Electric Slide" reference into his briefing, among other changes, asked what accounted for Hizzoner's change.

De Blasio pointed to a sense of relief as the city recovers from the pandemic.

"It feels like a joy to be a part of it," he said.

But de Blasio's good mood didn't extend to his nemesis — no, not Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"I just want to make a point about, you know, the bin..." he said as he closed the briefing, "...really let us down. The bin asked us for an opportunity to speak and just... You can bear silent witness if you want, but I just felt that was really a lost opportunity."