New York recycling oversight has been found to be riddled with missing reports, uninspected facilities, and figures the state cannot verify, according to a newly released audit by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli targeting the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
The Office of the New York State Comptroller’s audit reviewed the DEC’s management of Recyclables Handling and Recovery Facilities (RHRFs) between January 2021 and December 2023. Auditors identified 406 RHRFs operating statewide during that period. The DEC should have received 1,065 annual reports from those facilities on the designated RHRF form but received only 724, leaving 341 unaccounted for.
Of those 341 missing reports, 308 involved facilities that had submitted a different type of annual report because they also operated another facility type. The remaining 33 reports were not submitted at all, according to the audit.
The reporting gaps touched 148 separate facilities. Auditors also found that 35 per cent of facilities were not inspected during the review period, meaning the DEC has no independent basis on which to verify the figures those facilities did report. Where figures were submitted, auditors described them as ‘frequently inaccurate or not adequately supported.’
New York Recycling Oversight and the Gap Between Potential and Practice
The audit’s findings land against a backdrop of underperformance that goes beyond administrative recordkeeping. According to a November 2025 report from the SUNY ESF Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM), only 30 per cent of packaging and paper products are being recycled in New York, despite programmes designed to capture 76 per cent of those materials. The overall statewide recycling rate is estimated at just 15 per cent.
New Yorkers spend an estimated £788 million per year on recycling services, a figure drawn from the same CSMM report, produced in partnership with Resource Recycling Systems. Individual households pay between $12 and $16 per month, or $144 to $192 annually, for those services. Although the Center for Sustainable Materials Management’s needs assessment found that 100 per cent of New York State residents have access to curbside recycling, only 51 per cent of multi-family households outside New York City have recycling services available to them.
Many facilities, the comptroller’s office found, ‘failed to report how much material they discarded rather than recycled.’ That omission means the DEC may not be able to determine how much waste is actually being diverted from landfills, as opposed to simply moving through an RHRF. Auditors warned that if facilities are not effectively recovering recyclable materials, more waste may ultimately end up in landfills, undermining the state’s diversion goals.
Climate Commitments Depend on Data the State Doesn’t Have
The consequences extend to the state’s statutory climate commitments. New York remains committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 85 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, even after Governor Kathy Hochul scaled back some of the state’s more ambitious targets as part of a budget compromise.
‘It’s hard to know if we’re going to meet our climate goals since recycling is a big impact of preventing climate change and we know that solid waste accounts for 12% of state greenhouse gas emissions,’ said Mary Mueller, a spokesperson for the comptroller’s office.
The unreliable data make it difficult for the state to track progress toward those emissions targets. The DEC’s Bureau of Solid Waste Management, which sits within the Division of Materials Management, carries responsibility for registering, permitting, and regulating RHRFs, as well as providing financial assistance to municipalities for solid waste management facilities.
The DEC responded to the audit in a letter appended to the report, claiming the comptroller had ‘inflated its claims of reporting deficiencies.’ The agency nevertheless agreed to improve its tracking and reporting methods.
The DEC is simultaneously administering a parallel effort to understand the scale of the problem. In 2022, the agency tasked CSMM with conducting a statewide needs assessment and gap analysis of New York’s collection, transportation, and recycling system for residential, commercial, and institutional materials. The full needs assessment report is expected to be released in autumn 2026.
In June 2026, CSMM received $3.25 million in new state funding through New York State’s $425 million Environmental Protection Fund, administered by the DEC, to advance waste reduction, recycling, and sustainable materials management. Coverage of the audit has noted the irony: the same agency now under scrutiny for failing to collect recycling data is funding the body tasked with assessing why the system is falling short.
Whether the DEC’s promised reforms are implemented, and whether the autumn 2026 needs assessment surfaces further structural deficiencies, will determine whether the state’s recycling governance can catch up with its climate commitments.
