By Gus Saltonstall
Composting will no longer be available at two popular Upper West Side farmer’s markets due to city budget cuts.
GrowNYC, which runs farmer’s markets across the city, including at West 79th Street and Columbus Avenue and West 97th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, announced that both had the final day of their compost programming last week as the nonprofit has run out of funding, according to the nonprofit and elected officials.
In the fall, Mayor Eric Adams required all city agencies to reduce their costs in preparation for upcoming budget cuts for the 2025 fiscal year. The Department of Sanitation chose to slash $3 million in funding for its Community Compost Program, which nonprofits such as GrowNYC relied on.
At the time, GrowNYC was able to continue its work thanks to private donations, but that money has now run out and the organization was forced to lay off 90 employees on Monday, according to Upper West Side and Morningside Heights Councilmember Shaun Abreu.
The layoffs will also correspond with GrowNYC shutting down more of its programs in the coming weeks. GrowNYC is stopping its food scrap collection, despite a petition with more than 50,000 signatures in support of it.
On Monday, Abreu, who is chair of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, helped organize a rally at City Hall to fight for the restoration of the funding for composting and other green initiatives in the upcoming budget. Abreu is specifically asking for $11 million in total funding in the upcoming budget for community composting, which includes restoring $7.1 million for composting operations and providing the previously promised $4 million for building out additional community composting processing sites.
The rally took place before a joint executive budget hearing within City Hall on Monday.
“Budget cuts are already eliminating green jobs and disrupting the good practices we’ve been asking New Yorkers to build,” Abreu said in a news release. “It doesn’t make sense.”
We won’t know until the budget is finalized next month what funding will remain for composting in New York City, if any, but West Side Rag will follow the developments.
Read More: Earth Month UWS Explainer: How to ‘Compost’ Food Scraps and Why It Matters
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That’s too bad. I brought 2 big bags full of compost to the 79th St Farmers Market just this past Sunday. They always manage to fill about 8 or 9 outdoor garbage bags full within a couple of hours. That’s less food waster on our street…which means less food for rats. I hope we find a way to bring this popular service back soon.
Rat control is low priority when you gotta pay those migrant hotel tabs.
While the city is restoring the budget for next year 2025 people should use the side streets compost containers on their pick up days. I do know on West 80 Street we have about a dozen containers between Amsterdam Avenue and Columbus Avenue,
Pick up days are on early Saturday’s.
Containers are put out on Friday nights.
The 3 in my neighborhood (98 & Bway) are faulty and don’t work more often than not. They need maintenance and/or work on the functionality of the apps that control them…. neither Android nor iPhone users can consistently get these to open!
Their stop and swap programs are also ending.
If you can make it to Union Square Monday Wednesday Friday or Saturday Lower East Side Ecology is still collecting compost there to turn into rich soil..
11 million dollars of other people’s money? Help me to understand this, People bring to a location food waste and drop it off for free. This food waste the becomes compost which is basically naturally occurring with the proper conditions. So this compost has value so what does the city do with it? This valuable product that cost near nothing to produce and yet cost the city 11 Million. Every Politician I vote for has to have a basic understanding of business. Only in NYC could this happen.
Well, part of the expense would be providing the “proper conditions” in a place which is protected from people, animals, etc. Then, there is the processing of the compost; a large, open area, people to move, dump the raw materials in the pile, get it rotated in, keep the pile aerated and rotated, and damp (as needed), sift out the finished product and clean out any non-composted materials (bits of plastic, etc.). Compost is great; I would LOVE to have a composter in the area of Riverside Park where I volunteer. But it IS a lot of work, if done cleanly and correctly, and on a NYC scale, would involve a lot of folks.
Since Open Streets is For All (except cars, buses, or vendors) maybe they can fund the continuation of the program? They have the space and there is clearly interest on the UWS?
I highly recommend the Smart Composting Bins located up and down Broadway. Available 24/7. The app is easy to use
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/collection/residents/food-scrap-drop-off.page
The 3 in my neighborhood (98 & Bway) are faulty and don’t work more often than not. They need maintenance and/or work on the functionality of the apps that control them…. neither Android nor iPhone users can consistently get these to open!
Good riddance. Parked a large truck all day Sunday in the most trafficked corner of the UWS, endangering pedestrians, bicyclists and cars alike. Plenty of other opportunities to compost properly, including in your own bldg.
Not yet! AND although composting will be mandatory starting late this year, through your residential building on the UWS, it may perhaps have mixed results…
https://citylimits.org/2023/10/11/as-nyc-rolls-out-mandatory-composting-will-new-yorkers-comply/?https://citylimits.org/2023/02/13/wait-times-for-nycha-apartments-doubled-last-year-as-number-of-vacant-units-climb/&campaignid=20040558639&adgroupid=149021841032&adid=656667243482&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwr7ayBhAPEiwA6EIGxGuSOhUl026F0uWgjcAOZG1D2c10thXyt3pmMHVrZFULHZLf5lLuJRoCJhAQAvD_BwE
Why is the city paying for a private nonprofit to get free composting?
Thank you, Mr. One-Term Mayor.
There are compost containers available for buildings, with Saturday pickup. There also are permanent bins located in various spots (e.g., corner CPW and 81)
! !!!!!FIGHT ON !!!!!!!
This is another example of the city giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Composting has been shown to be a terrific solution to the rat problem, as garbage will hopefully not contain edible food products. The city is spending money on rat proof garbage receptacles, which now will contain more “rat food”. Composting was solving two problems at once.: Getting rid of garbage that attracts rats and providing compost. Now we’ll have less compost and more rats. And more expensive garbage receptacles.
If you have a problem opening the orange composting container, it’s probably bc you need to close and re-open the app. Make sure the app is closed before you stand in front of the container. To close an app, swipe from the bottom of your screen towards the left starting an oval shape. You will see the apps you have open pop up on the screen shaped like rectangles. Swipe these triangles up and then re-open the composting app. Whenever I’ve encountered a problem with these containers, closing and reopening the app was the solution.
The GrowNYC composting program was a good idea that will no longer be needed when mandatory composting starts,
My UWS building has -participated in the pilot program for maybe 5 years and we have not had any significant issues. The well designed and sturdy containers have tight seals (no odors), are raccoon proof and have wheels to easily move them. The containers also mean that there is less food in the regular garbage and fewer rats.
A better end to the GrowNYC program would be to keep it in place for a few months after the start of the mandatory composting and use them to educate the public about the new program.
GrowNYC compost ends up in a composting facility on Governor’s Island. Where the scraps from drop off get converted into usable compost.
The city-run one (“Brown Bins”)is a poorly implemented program that takes the scraps to NJ and incinerates them. May as well let the scraps decompose in the garbage.
Stop calling the Dept of Sanitation a composting project. They use the contents of the brown streetside composting bins in all the nabes in Manhattan as the biofuel for burning. I’m going to hope and assume that the Dept of Sanitation is not crass enough to simply burn the bin contents without an additional purpose – using that biofuel for some other constructive acitivity. Does anybody know?
A lot of budget lines are being cut in addition to composting: libraries, cultural institutions, etc. How much are expenditures for free stuff for migrants a factor in cutting parts of the budget that benefit citizens who are already living here?
90 employees?
I don’t understand why politicians and apparently residents wonder “why are they cutting budgets? Why are they cutting our services?” Why do you think? We are broke after paying for 200,000 migrants to have food, lodging, phones, transportation, $1000 cash cards, etc. And no end in site.
Where do they think the money will come from if not cutting our services. Taxes are already sky high where businesses and low to middle income residents can’t afford to keep up. Our whole city and state administrations are a complete joke and don’t only blame the mayor. He tried to stop the “sanctuary city”. Blame your other politicians you voted for.
Agreed. Giving free stuff to migrants is insane and is unjust to the people already living here and paying taxes.