Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to have junkies toss their used syringes into special receptacles has failed to clean up dru⛎g-infested parks, and the bins are serving more as suggestion boxes — spreading the message that the city is OK with them shooting up there.
Official statistics obtained by The Post from the first six months of de Blasio’s controversial program s𒅌how that parks in the Bronx are still littered with dangerous hypodermic needles, with nearly 60,000 found on the ground compar🌳ed with just 7,000 in Hizzoner’s 44 locked containers.
Even worse, the green metal bins are seen as a welcome mat for druggies to take over the parks, said one addict who openly injected himself 🐠in St. Mary’s Park in the Bronx Thursday morning with what he said was 💦a speedball of heroin and cocaine.
“They’re giving permission with that b🍷ox,” said Javier Martinez, 32.
༒“Kids don’t come here. They don’t build anything for them like a playground. If they don’t want us doing ꧒drugs, why are they putting the boxes here?”
Martinez also claimed t🥀hat he’d rather get his fix elsewhere, “but if you go in a hallway or an alley it’s trespassing.”
Martinez was hanging out with f🐭our buddies on a rock outcro🔯pping littered with syringes, even though an official needle-disposal box sat on a post about 5 feet away.
One of the men said he has AIDS but insisted he always bent his needles so no one could reuse theꦰm and contract HIV — unless they happened to step on one.
When the group abandoned the spot at around sunset, they left behind an assortment of trash that included more used syringes, empty packaꦇges of disinfectant tablets and the blue tops from plastic vials of sterile water used to mix the heroin.
Data collected by the Parks Department from May 1 thro🔯ugh Oct. 24 show that only 11 percent of 66,656 needles went into de Blasio’s bins, which are installed in 14 parks in the Bro🦄nx.
Geoffrey👍 Croft, of NYC Park Advocates, said the results proved the program was “a terrible idea from D♔ay One.”
“Instead of addressing the dangerous public-safety conditions this activity creates, the city has turned our parks into sho💯oting galleries,” Croft fumed🤡.
He also accused ꧟de Blasio of unfairly targeting the Bronx for his “incredibly il🐎l-conceived policy.”
“I’m certain the mayor would not dare place them in Carl Schurz Park [on the Upper East Side near his Gracie Mansion home] or Central Park,” Croft said of the needle receptac🅘les.
According to the city’👍s figures, St. Mary’s, in the Mott Haven section, recorded the most intravenous drug use, with a total 21,434 needles collected there.
Only 163, or less than 1 perꦗcent, were safely discarded, fo🌄rcing workers to pick the rest up off the ground.
The second-worst drug spot on the list is Aqueduct Walk parkꦍ, which is closed for reconstruction.
Bu🤡t before it was fenced off in October, workers collect⛎ed a total 19,768 needles, of which just 2,995 were safely discarded, stats show.
Area resident Michael Jos♔eph said the mayor’s needle-disposal program made “no sense.” 🍸”
“I’ve lived here since 1993 and never heard𝓰 of tꦉhe city doing anything like this,” the 64-year-old carpenter said.
“Why say it’s OK to do drugs where the chilꦯdren play?”
The boxes provꦇed a failure at both Crotona and Rose Hill parks, where 🥃they collected zero syringes but workers picked up 1,611 and 30, respectively.
At Crotona Park, one container is set up amid a stand of trees that appears to have been used for Santeria rituals, with three small animal skulls on the ground near the feathered remains of a rooster and a ✱collection of religious candles in tall glass jars.
A worker said that box “does noth🅺ing, or nothing g▨ood, anyway.”
“It’s like w☂e’re making a landmark for bad stuff, lꦡike we’re marking that spot,” he said.
“So I say, ‘We got to clean up the voodoo,’ and [my co-worker] says, ‘Where?’ I say, ‘Ne🥃xt to the needle box.’ ”
The worker s൩aid there were also boxes in the park’s bathrooms, “but we find the needles in the same spots as always — mostly up on the rocks.”
“They drop the needle wherever it falls. They don’t care,🌳” he said ♐of the park’s druggies.
Christopher Williams, 5🐼0, who walks his dogs in Crotona Park, was outraged about all the needles strewn about.
“Why are they testing this out on us?” he asked.
“If it was working, I’d say, ‘Good, keep doing it,’ ” the building super said. “But if all it’s doing is saying this is their spot — ‘Come here to do thi🧔s’ — no!”
De Blasio spokeswoman𓆉 Jane Meyer defended the program.
“The notion that these disposal contai𒅌ners are encouraging drug use is ludicrous,” she said in an email. “This program has removed thousands of syringes and is protecting our kids and neighborhoods. ”
But during an appearance last month to announce a “Bronx Action Plan” to combat fatal overdos🍷es in the South Bronx, de Blasio refused to admit his needle-disposal plan wasn’t working.
“I can say there’s more we got to do,” he said.
“That’s why we’r𒆙e doing this cleanup effort because clearly not everyone is using those kiܫosks who should.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan