The good news, for New Yorkers who like to turn their organic waste into nutritious compost, is that the City Council and the Adams administration dedicated $6.2 million in funding for 15 different community composting groups for the coming fiscal year, and that funding cannot be cut later on by an austerity-minded mayor.
The bad news is that $6.2 million is not nearly enough to meet the demand for community composting in New York City, and as a result, one of the city's most popular compost collection programs is finished—GrowNYC's popular Greenmarket compost drop-off sites are not coming back.
GrowNYC was able to keep operating their dozens of compost collection sites across the five boroughs thanks to an anonymous donation back in December, which temporarily shielded them from the mayor's mid-year budget cuts in November. But when that money ran out this past May, they had to shut down their sites and lay off dozens of workers.
While GrowNYC is getting a slice of the $6.2 million, it's significantly less than they have received in the past, and they still won't be able to reopen the Greenmarket collection sites. "The funding we received is not nearly enough to rebuild our old programming," the group's spokesperson Andrina Sanchez told Hell Gate. In a statement that was sent later, GrowNYC said that while they were deeply appreciative of Speaker Adrienne Adams and City Council Sanitation chair Shaun Abreu, they were now going to "reenvision our waste reduction programming."
"I think it's a travesty," Manhattan Councilmember Gale Brewer said in reaction to the death of GrowNYC's collection sites. "GrowNYC is the most beloved—I think it's the most beloved program in New York City, in terms of the Greenmarkets and the farmers and the relationships that get built up—talk about community, oh my goodness."
Brewer, who is sponsoring legislation that would require the Parks Department to open composting sites in 10 of the City's largest parks, stressed the crucial role that these community composting organizations play in educating the public about why composting matters, and how to sort their organic waste. But rather than promoting community composting, the Adams administration has instead focused the City's composting efforts on brown curbside bins and the orange Smart Bins operated by the Department of Sanitation (which again, mostly produce methane, not compost).
"I thought it was so strange when the mayor was saying, oh, we're gonna have citywide composting, so you don't need these programs. I'm thinking to myself, let's be clear, on the Upper West Side, we have composting from our homes, right? You know how hard it is to get these people to do it? I go door to door and I get nowhere," Brewer said. "Without the education, you're not going to get people to compost. Period. They're just not gonna do it. We need maximum education, we need maximum [drop off sites]."
Some Greenmarkets will still have drop-off sites operated by other organizations, like the LES Ecology Center—you can look at a map of the market drop-off points here.
"While GrowNYC will be reducing their waste program from previous years, they remain important to the city’s composting ecosystem," Councilmember Abreu told Hell Gate in a statement. "With the funds the council is providing to them, we expect they will continue to facilitate composting in schools. We’re also providing new funds for another non-profit—Cafeteria Culture—to also bring a new education program to public school education on how and why composting is important to making the city more sustainable."
Justin Green, the executive director of Big Reuse, one of the constellation of community composting groups, called the results of the budget negotiations "bittersweet."
Big Reuse is slated to receive $1.4 million for their community composting programs, more than most other organizations on the list of recipients, but they are currently left without any of their own places to process it, because the Adams administration evicted them from their site underneath the Queensboro Bridge, despite outcry from thousands of community members, two Queens community boards, the City comptroller, and 20 councilmembers. Their other site in Gowanus is closed for construction, and won't open for months.
"What we had done in the past, which is collect food scraps at various community organizations and then bring them to community gardens and other drop off points and then bring them to our composting site—we won't be able to do until we open a new site," Green told Hell Gate.
Green said he expects to work more in community gardens to help them increase their composting abilities and capacities, and to use some money to hopefully find a spot to replace their Queens home. He added that he was heartened to see newer groups on the list getting City resources—which will come out of the City Council's discretionary pot, so it cannot be raided by the administration—and was excited to start working with them.
"We're all still trying to get together to figure out what the vision is for this funding," Green said. "New York City is sort of stepping back from having drop-offs at all."
