New York's Hottest—and Filthiest—Club Is on Staten Island

Wanna know something cool about Staten Island? Not only is it home to the only City-run household organics composting facility in the five boroughs, but also, Staten Islanders are the very best in the city at composting.

Could it be because, unlike the rest of the five boroughs, many of the homes on Staten Island are single-family with yard waste like leaves? Probably. But could it also be because Staten Islanders have an insanely efficient composting facility at their doorstep? One which gives away extraordinary, sweet-smelling compost to locals who come by on their bikes on weekends to pick it up and grow giant tomatoes, in a beautiful, circular ecosystem of decay and renewal? We like to think so!

The Staten Island Compost Facility has risen from the dark past of its nasty, greenhouse gas-exhaling cousin—the Fresh Kills landfill, which closed in 2001—to become a shining beacon of composting in New York City's southern-most borough. Taking all of Staten Island and some of South Brooklyn's food waste, it pumps out millions of pounds of compost—two million pounds so far this year, the DSNY said.

Last year, the facility expanded and upgraded to process compost faster, and in April the city composting machine got a big boost through the good old-fashioned method of threat-of-penalty-if-you-don't-do-it. The impact was immediate: In just the first two weeks, DSNY picked up a record-breaking 6.4 million pounds of organic matter. Each week since then, that number has only increased (even after first deputy mayor Randy Mastro abruptly decided to halt composting enforcement, despite its success). After the facility’s upgrade, its capacity to process food waste grew from 3 million pounds per year to a total of 62.4 million pounds per year. Now the Staten Island facility is almost at capacity, DSNY Deputy Commissioner Jennifer McDonnell said.