70 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JANUARY 18, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
buzz
In LIC, your food scraps are turned into
compost to divert waste from landfi lls
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com / @angelamatua
Underneath the Queensboro Bridge in
Long Island City, hundreds of thousands
of pounds of food scraps collected by
Queens residents undergo a transformation
through a process called composting.
Th ough New York City has operated
the NYC Compost Project since 1993,
the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) has
become more aggressive about convincing
New Yorkers to compost.
According to Belinda Mager, the director
of digital media and communications
for DSNY, the city has a “multi-fold strategy”
for diverting organics that began
with workshops to teach people how to
compost in their homes and community
gardens.
In 2013, the city began rolling out the
curbside collection program and handed
out brown bins for food scraps to
homeowners and in apartment buildings.
Residents can also drop off their food
scraps in subways, libraries and public
places like Socrates Sculpture Park.
“We have this whole portfolio of initiatives
and all of them are trying to meet
New Yorkers where they’re at and getting
them out of the landfi ll,” Mager said.
To reach more New Yorkers, the city
partners with nonprofi ts who can help
them with their composting initiative. In
Queens, one of these organizations is Big
Reuse, which began operating in the borough
in 2005. In 2017, the organization
processed 848,000 pounds of food scraps.
Th e nonprofi t began leasing space
underneath the Queensboro Bridge
in 2013 and processes the food scraps
dropped off at commuter stations and
farmers markets. Big Reuse accepts most
food scraps except dairy, meat and bones
and also takes food soiled products and
compostable plastic, according to operations
coordinator Erik Hoversten.
For those in the organics collection program,
the city accepts dairy, meat, bones
and yard waste.
Louise Bruce, the former senior program
manager for NYC Organics, compared
the act of composting to creating a
balanced meal.
“It’s thinking about how can I blend
materials together like food waste and
yard waste to achieve a perfect carbon and
nitrogen blend?” she said.
In Long Island City, the recipe includes
food scraps with wood chips delivered
from Greenwood Cemetery, leaves delivered
seasonally from city parks and wood
shavings from local woodworkers, according
to Hoversten.
Charles Lynch, the operations manager
on site, mixes about 3,000 pounds of
material in a food mixer and uses a plow
to transport it. Th e perfect mixture contains
two yards of food scraps, one yard
of wood chips and one yard of leaves, he
said.
Th is mixture is compiled into an “aerated
static pile” where air is pumped through
a perforated pipe on a cycle to “maintain
a consistent oxygen level,” Hoversten said.
A Gore Cover helps to control heat and
moisture and maintains odor reduction.
Th e mixture is then turned over multiple
times to extend the decomposition process
and then screen out any large items.
Th e entire process takes about fi ve to six
months and once compost is produced it
is used in city parks and community gardens.
Community Board 2, which includes
Long Island City, Sunnyside and
Woodside, was enrolled in the curbside
collection program in Oct. 2017.
All buildings of nine units or less were
automatically enrolled and residents
should have received small bins to store
organics in their homes as well as a larger
brown bin for building use.
Buildings with 10 or more units can
submit a request to enroll on the DSNY
website.
Composting food scraps is benefi cial for
a number of reasons, Bruce argues. Since
the food waste is not collected in a regular
trash bin and emanating odors, residents
can take out the trash a little less oft en.
Th is process also allows buildings to cut
off the food supply for rodents or other
creatures.
“We have a staff person and her building
enrolled in organics collection,” Bruce
said. “Th ey had a terrible skunk problem
in Inwood and they couldn’t get the
skunks to go away. Th ey tried exterminators.
Aft er enrolling in organics collection
the problem just completely ceased.”
Hoversten added that about 30 percent
of trash in New York City is compostable
so one of the main benefi ts of
this program is diversion. By keeping this
trash out of landfi lls, New Yorkers reduce
space demand and also reduce the amount
of greenhouses gases that are produced
when this matter breaks down.
Th is “complex system of benefi cial
organisms” acts like a sponge and can
retain water. Th e compost “holds on to
water and releases it slowly over time”
reducing the number of times you should
water your plants, Bruce said. Compost
can also hold on to harmful heavy metals
so that they are not released into the soil
and made available to plants, she added.
In 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced
his plan to contribute zero waste to landfi
lls by 2030, which includes reducing
commercial waste disposal by 90 percent
and bringing organics collections to all
city residents and public schools.
So far, about 3.3 million New Yorkers
have access to curbside collection and by
the end of this year all city residents will
have curbside collection or have access to
convenient neighborhood drop-off sites.
In Queens, Community Boards 2, 5, 7,
8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 have curbside collection
and the city plans to expand to other
boards this year.
“I think at fi rst it’s a very daunting experience
to think about taking something
you normally throw in a bin and don’t
have to think about and once you make
that change keeping a system,” Bruce said.
“Th ere’s such an enormous amount of
opportunity for diverting.”
Photos by Angela Matua/QNS
Big Reuse helps operate the city’s compost program underneath the Queensboro Bridge.