New York City eateries move to take a bite out of food waste

The next time you bite into that pork bun at Momofuku or burrito at Chipotle, you can tell yourself that you are doing something for the environment.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Thursday that more than 100 New York City restaurants, including haute cuisine temples like Le Bernardin and chains like Pret a Manger, have pledged to reduce the food waste they send to landfills by 50 percent.

They will accomplish this goal by composting and recycling, Mr. Bloomberg said in a speech during the New York Times Energy for Tomorrow Conference, at TheTimesCenter.

“Food wastes make up about a third of our city’s total of more than 20,000 tons of daily refuse,” the mayor said. Restaurants, he added, account for 70 percent of commercial food waste.

Mr. Bloomberg told the audience that the conference’s caterer, Cleaver Company, had also joined the challenge.

“I’m glad to report that any uneaten food today will be diverted away from the landfill,” he said, before adding, with a grin, a reference to the conference cost. “That’s not to say you shouldn’t eat. For 800 bucks you should get a decent meal.”

Mr. Bloomberg made a related announcement on Wednesday. He said the city would expand a composting pilot program currently under way in Manhattan and Brooklyn schools to all schools in the next two years. The program has reduced the amount of garbage the two boroughs’ schools send to landfills by 38 percent.

On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg also said that the city would convert nine acres of underused city-owned land into community garden sites, which nonprofit and community groups can apply to manage.