Don’t Kill Community Composting in New York City
Eliminating funding for NYC’s neighborhood network of food waste drop-off sites would be a significant blow to the city’s sustainability and climate resilience efforts.
A community composting drop-off site in Queens, New York, offers guidance for home composting, too.
Photographer: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Food waste is the part of garbage that makes it disgusting. When sealed in plastic bags with other trash, food waste putrefies, releasing foul odors and garbage juice, attracting rodents and roaches. When it winds up in landfills, food waste creates leachate and methane that pollute the land, waterways and air.
But when food waste is composted, it transforms into a nutrient-rich, environmentally friendly soil amendment: black gold. An ancient practice that has evolved over centuries of work by gardeners and farmers, composting is an effective way to bolster cities’ green agenda.