After a nine-month hiatus due to budget cuts, community composting is making a comeback in New York City, with two popular sites reopening this weekend. New Yorkers are once again welcome to drop off their organic waste at McCarren Park in Brooklyn and the Forest Hills farmer’s market in Queens. This revival, funded by a $6.25 million allocation from the City Council's discretionary budget, signifies renewed investment in sustainable waste management practices amidst a sluggish citywide curbside composting program. According to Gothamist, Councilmember Lynn Schulman expressed support, noting the program's importance for the health of New Yorkers.
Despite the efforts to roll out curbside compost collection, which will become mandatory on April 1 with penalties for non-compliance, participation rates remain lower than expected. The sanitation department reports that less than 5% of New Yorkers are composting. In an effort to boost these numbers, the restored community drop-off sites also aim to serve as educational tools. As Marc Laster from the Forest Hills Green Team told Gothamist, "It's an opportunity to educate the community about the importance of participating in curbside composting, and then ultimately to remind them, as of April 1, if your building's not doing it, you're going to get fines."
The resurgence of community-centric initiatives extends beyond the city's efforts. Enter Nando Rodriguez, the environmental program head at Brotherhood Sister Sol, who launched the 1K Composting Systems campaign to bring composting systems into every borough. The campaign is rooted in a vision to embed environmental justice and resilience within local communities. City Limits reported that these grassroots operations are critical given that organic waste is the third largest contributor to the city's greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite fiscal challenges and last year's cuts to funding by Mayor Eric Adams' administration, the community compost movement, with aid from the City Council, has secured necessary funds to persist at least until June. Additionally, a partnership with NYC Climate Justice Hub will produce an interactive map delineating the impact of these composting sites. "So having local community compost, to me, is empowering our community," Rodriguez stated in a recent City Limits interview. He emphasized the relevance of community action and the positive implications of local waste processing for neighborhood vitality and environmental stewardship.
Over the next six months, the 1K Composting Systems campaign plans to build 25 new sites across the five boroughs, aiming to eclipse the previous year's addition of roughly a dozen. While acknowledging the gradual progress, Rodriguez remains optimistic about expanding the campaign and harnessing collective community influence to encourage more people and organizations to support local composting efforts.
