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Clean heat for New York City

Switching to cleaner heating fuels is New York's biggest step to healthy air

Black smoke from a building burning No. 6 heating oil

Black smoke from a building burning No. 6 heating oil

Isabelle Silverman

Soot pollution in New York City causes more than 3,000 deaths every year from lung and heart disease.

Buildings burning the two dirtiest heating oils create more soot than all the City's cars and trucks combined.

Switching to cleaner heating fuels is the largest step we can take to cut this pollution.

NYC Clean Heat provides free resources to buildings to help them convert to cleaner heating fuel in the most cost-effective and efficient way.

Our campaign for clean heat

Our campaign to phase out highly polluting heating oil in New York City reached a major milestone with Mayor Bloomberg's announcement of the clean heat rule to end use of the worst heating fuels. (Rule in brief [PDF] and full text [PDF]). Since then EDF has become a partner in the NYC Clean Heat program. In June 2012, Mayor Bloomberg $100 million in financing for buildings converting to cleaner heating fuel.

Case studies and testimonials

Visit NYC Clean Heat for case studies and testimonials of buildings that have converted to cleaner heating fuel.

If NYC stops using No. 4 and No. 6 oil:

  • 259 deaths could be prevented each year.

  • $733M would be saved in annual health care costs.

  • 2M fewer metric tons of greenhouse gases would be emitted – the equivalent of 441,000 fewer cars on the road.

Is your building burning No. 4 or No. 6 oil?

Contact NYC Clean Heat for free resources to help your building switch to cleaner heating fuel in the most cost-effective way.

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