By Scott Etkin

This is West Side Rag’s second article for Earth Month. For Part I about tips for recycling, please click – HERE.

No matter how careful we are, we all produce food waste – like banana peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells. Many New Yorkers dump those food scraps in with the rest of their trash, which causes problems down the line: food scraps attract rats when garbage bags are set out on the curb for collection. And they produce greenhouse gases when they decompose in landfills.

But 2024 is a big year for change in how New York City handles its millions of pounds of annual food waste. Beginning in October, the city Department of Sanitation (DSNY) will collect food waste (commonly called “organics”  or “compost”) in bins from all city residences – a move aimed at lowering pollution and improving the rat problem. Read on for more about this initiative and the other ways Upper West Siders can start composting today.

 But first, some context about food waste on the Upper West Side.

How Much Are We Wasting? 

In 2023, DSNY collected 1,084 tons of organics (meaning food scraps) from Upper West Side residences, schools, and Smart Bins (public repositories where people can dump their scraps), according to NYC’s Open Data Portal. That’s nearly 11 pounds of food waste per Upper West Sider, per year (a ton equals 2,000 pounds and approximately 200,000 people live in the neighborhood). 

But that’s just what was collected by DSNY’s composting programs, which have relatively low participation. About 30% of what New Yorkers put in the regular trash is food scraps and food-soiled paper that could be composted, according to DSNY’s most recent Waste Characterization Study. The 1,084 tons cited above doesn’t include food waste from restaurants, which is handled by private companies, or the food scraps collected by GrowNYC, a non-profit, which collected 1,300 tons across the city in 2022. GrowNYC has several collection points on the Upper West Side, but a breakdown of tons collected by neighborhood isn’t available.

The Problems with Food Waste

In a city where 1.2 million people are food insecure, according to a 2022 report, wasting food is just plain wrong. But how food is disposed of can cause additional problems. 

First, from an environmental perspective, reducing the amount of food waste you produce is one of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint. This is largely because when food waste goes into a landfill, it releases methane and carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases that fuel global warming. Recent research from the Environmental Protection Agency showed that food waste produces the majority of methane from landfills.

Second, one of the primary reasons rodents are so prevalent in New York City is because food waste is mixed with trash and left out on street curbs for collection in garbage bags. Rodents can easily rip into the bags at night, a situation that city officials have called an “all-you-can-eat buffet” for rats. That’s why containerizing trash – meaning, putting it out for collection in bins instead of bags – has been a focus of several of the city’s recent initiatives. 

If I Stop Putting My Food Scraps in the Trash, Where Will They Go?

Food scraps collected by DSNY from Smart Bins, residences, and schools are primarily brought to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, which is operated by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. In Brooklyn they are converted into fertilizer and biogas; the gas is used to heat the treatment plant itself or is fed into the utility grid, displacing the need for some fossil fuels. 

Turning food scraps into actual compost (nutrient-rich soil) is a land- and time-intensive process, which makes it difficult for a city like New York. A recently expanded facility on Staten Island can process 31,250 tons of food scraps and 73,500 tons of yard waste per year, but this is still a relatively small portion of the city’s organic waste. 

So, How Do I Get Started Composting?

Once you store your food scraps in a bin or bag separate from your household trash, there are a few different ways Upper West Siders can dispose of them to ensure they don’t go to a landfill. 

Smart Bins

• DSNY has rolled out 400 Smart Bins on sidewalks across the city designated for food scraps, including 29 on the West Side from 59th to 110th Street. 
• Smart Bins accept all food scraps, plant waste, and food-soiled paper, including meat, bones, dairy, prepared foods, and greasy uncoated paper plates and pizza boxes. You can drop off these items in a compostable bag (like the produce bags from Trader Joe’s), a paper bag, or even a plastic bag. 
• To use Smart Bins you need to download the free NYC Compost mobile app (Apple / Android). The app will show you a map of all the Smart Bins in the city and whether they are available for use (when a bin is full, the app won’t be able to open it until the city has collected the compost inside). Once you’re within a foot or so of the Smart Bin you want to use, select it in the app and then hit “Unlock Bin.” When you toss your compost into the bin and close the door, the bin will lock again automatically.

GrowNYC Greenmarkets

• GrowNYC, a non-profit organization, has collected food scraps at its farmers’ markets since 2011 and there are several UWS drop-off locations on various days of the week.  But due to NYC budget cuts, GrowNYC is expected to stop accepting food scraps by May 20th, despite protests and a petition with more than 50,000 signatures. A full list of closure dates can be found at this link. The City Council has called for community composting to be restored to the mayor’s next preliminary budget (July 2024 to June 2025), but the outcome is yet to be decided.
• Unlike the Smart Bins, the Greenmarkets don’t accept meat, fish, and dairy. When dropping off the contents you can also only use a compostable bag or paper bag, not a plastic bag. 

In-Home Composting 

• Countertop and kitchen space is at a premium in many UWS apartments, leaving little room for more appliances. But for those interested, there are ways to turn your food scraps into compost right in your home. 
• Lomi is a machine that sits on your countertop and turns food scraps into compost, which can then be fed to your house plants (and, likely, your neighbors’ plants, too).
• Another option, Mill, looks like a trash bin but is actually a machine that dehydrates and breaks down food scraps. The resulting material can be used on your plants or shipped back to Mill to be redistributed to farmers as chicken feed.  

Curbside Composting is Coming Soon

In October this year, curbside composting will be rolled out for all residential buildings across the city, meaning that DSNY will collect food scraps as a separate waste stream alongside paper, metal/glass/plastic, and trash. This “brown bin” program is already in operation in Brooklyn and Queens, as well as in some buildings in Manhattan Community Boards 6 (on the east side) and 7 (from West 59th to West 110th Street) as part of a pilot program. (No new buildings are being added to the pilot.) 

Similar to the Smart Bins, curbside composting will allow meat, bones, dairy, and food-soiled paper, in addition to cooked food and all other kinds of food scraps. The material can be dropped into the bin in a plastic bag.

When the program is live in the fall, no sign-up will be necessary. DSNY will collect food scraps that building managers set out in a bin on the same day as your building’s current recycling collection day. 

By spring 2025, participation in the curbside composting program will be mandatory for residential buildings, with the city ensuring enforcement through penalties levied on the building similar to how it currently enforces recycling policies. Details on the penalties haven’t been announced. An information session with more detail on curbside composting is available to watch at this link.

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