New Yorkers never back down from a scrap, so composting is ramping up in the Big Apple. Cores of not-so-big apples and other food waste can be sorted and dropped off by the city’s orange “smart bins” to biodegrade, providing a greener alternative to incineration or landfills.
Permanent and compulsory curbside composting—mandated by one of five bills passed by city council in the “Zero Waste Act” bill package—arrives in Brooklyn next week. Bronx and Staten Island are up after next March and Manhattan collection starts in October 2024. And the program is already in full-effect in Queens.
Councilmember Sandy Nurse, one champion of the “Zero Waste Act,” told the Amsterdam News the package better democratizes citywide environmental efforts, allowing residents throughout New York City to participate in greener solutions like composting.
“People with cleaner neighborhoods are the kind of ones who seem to have the luxury of living plastic-free lives [like] whatever we see on Instagram and protesting,” said Nurse. “This legislation has been so important to really course correct the city’s approach to organic waste and what neighborhoods the city has thought would be really receptive to it.
“The [composting] pilot that initially started was in Windsor Terrace. [It] started heavily in Park Slope. And some of these outer neighborhoods where it is mostly Black and Latino folks or AAPI communities, we have not had those programs in our community. This bill makes it universal. Everyone has access to the same infrastructure.”
Her city council colleague Shahana Hanif, who authored the bill, pointed to the exclusion of Black and brown New Yorkers from the city’s “robust” composting efforts as a key issue when she initially introduced the legislation last year.
Nurse adds that mitigating landfill waste through measures like mandatory composting fights back against environmental racism. And generally allows the city to be a better neighbor. She points to the outsourcing of trash to other parts of the state, as well as in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where largely low-income communities of color reside.
So how are New Yorkers expected to compost? The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) offers free brown bins to Brooklynites until Oct. 13. But any labeled container 55 gallons or less with a secured lid works—lining the bin with a trash bag and filling it with food scraps, yard waste and “food-soiled” paper. That includes bones, dairy products and workplace potluck dishes made by coworkers who can’t cook. But keep out hygiene products, diapers, animal waste and recyclables.
The program will become citywide in just a little over a year on Oct. 7, 2024 when the last borough, Manhattan, begins adopting curbside composting. Nurse says when the time comes, legally-mandated outreach like door-knocking should be expected. The process is currently taking place in Brooklyn.
But in uptown, Manhattan Community Board 10 and Greater Harlem Coalition (GHC) spokespeople both told the AmNews that composting is yet to come across the radars of many Harlemites.
“For the New Yorkers in our neighborhood, very few people are really thinking about compost and most people are more focused at the moment on the 8 p.m. trash put-out time which has impacted homeowners,” said GHC co-founder Shawn Hill.
Similar to the garbage disposal rules, the city is betting on composting as an anti-rat measure.
“Putting food waste in sealed containers is a huge rat mitigation strategy,” said Nurse. “That involves making sure that their lids are closed [and] you have to use a good container that closes—you can’t overstep it. You’ve got to make sure it’s sealed so that rodents don’t get in it.
“But removing the food from bags that sit out for hours at night during peak rat hangout times is a huge rat mitigation strategy.”
Still, there are options for Manhattanites, including Harlem residents, to get a headstart on local composting efforts which include the aforementioned orange “smart bins” which operate 24/7 and are unlockable with the city’s NYC Compost app on iPhone and Android devices. These dropoff locations are spread throughout Harlem, although so far none have been installed on 125th Street. A DSNY spokesperson says there are around 400 bins citywide, collected six days a week and take “all compostable material” including meat and dairy products.
Along with the app-based bins, the city’s food scrap drop-off map also lists neighborhood-run sites like community gardens and green markets. Project Harmony’s Cindy Worley, who manages the composting drop-off at Harlem’s Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden, is a proponent of the city’s efforts toward more access. But she hopes the upcoming citywide engagement means genuine investment and passion for greener waste disposal rather than mandatory participation.
“With a community compost people know what they’re doing, they know that they’re doing something good for the earth [and] that this is all going to be utilized,” said Worley. “If there’s just a simple mandate [to] put your compost here and sanitation will pick it up, it becomes another sanitation collection…but if you know it’s going to be breaking down and go back to the good Earth, you know that will be a happy thing.”
And the soil goes directly back into the community. Worley says soil from the compost bin, which she nicknames “black gold,” is used to fertilize trees on her block as well as given to local residents for their own homegrown projects. To her, composting is a long-term investment in more than one way.
“If you have children, or grandchildren, or if you’re just concerned about the future anyway, if you are going to be around for another 70, 100 or 1,000 years like [my friend] Grace and myself, we all want a better environment,” said Worley with a laugh. “Climate change is taking a front seat these days, as well as it should in my view. So anyone can help the cause.
“Maybe you’re not able to go to every protest, if you’re not able to go yell at the U.N., but you can do something tangibly— to assist if everyone can do something tangibly—that is going to make a difference.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.