Green scene back
Trash is treasure again as composting resumes
Before the pandemic, Jeffrey LeFrancois would bring a tote bag full of carrot peels, broccoli stems and the occasional wilted bouquet of bodega flowers to his Upper West Side composting site during weekend morning dog walks along the Hudson River.
It had been six months since LeFrancois could take that stroll with his wirehaired dachshund Scarlet following a citywide coronavirus-driven shutdown of most composting sites.
But then he heard that the Hudson River Park Trust reopened its sites and added three others for the first time since March — and his ecofriendly heart beamed.
“I am t h r i l l e d ,” said LeFrancois, calling the Trust's new sites Manhattan's green jewel. “There's never been a year-round compost site quite like this on the West Side.
“It's a part of my morning routine,” he added, noting that he has composted for nearly seven years. “It pained me to have to throw eggs shells, orange peels and onion skins into the garbage. It was a visceral reminder of everything that was going to waste.”
The Departmentp of Sani- tation opened its first yardwaste composting facility back in 1990 at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. By 2019, the city collected about 50,000 tons of compostable products per year.
Yet the agency was forced to suspend its curbside composting services, citing budget cuts and dollars diverted to Covid-19 relief efforts. All tolled, 175 community composting sites were shut down.
While some composting sites in the city have reopened — including nine of the 67 spots affiliated with GrowNYC — many more remain shuttered, meaning places like those of the Hudson River Park Trust, are more precious than ever.
“[No compostingpg sites] means more rats on our streets. It means sanitation issues. It means higher volumes of garbage. It means more trash for pedestrians to walk through that crowd the sidewalks,” said Chana Widawski, a Hell's Kitchen composter who supports the reopening of the parks' sites. “And it involves a higher budget because we have to spend more money on disposing trash.”
“People were at a loss and were begging for [more composting bins] to come back,” she added.
The Hudson River Park Trust — which partnered with the Sanitation Department in 2017 and later City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to launch its Com
munity Compost Program — recently opened new areas aat Pier 46, Pier 66 and Pier 996.
The sites allow people to dispose of compost themselves, with detailed written innstructions on how to do so ssafely said Carrie Roble, vice president of The River Project, which is part of the Hudson River Park Trust.
“We are anticipating a lot more engagement [because] we are all about making [composting] more accesssible,” she said.
Hudson River Park Trust PPresident Madelyn Wils also said many cities don't have the resources to return organic items to the earth, making New York a unique spot for the eco-minded.
“Not every city has composting like we do,” she said. “That's why we need to be out there composting safely.”
The city restored $2.8 million for community composting, the Sanitation Department announced last month — enough funding to help its NYC Compost Project support some small composting sites.
For LeFrancois, such places allow him to do turn his green trash into compost treasure.
“A beautiful compost bin,” he said. “I just can't wait!”