By Scott Etkin
At the start of this year, the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) resumed issuing fines to all buildings that fail to participate in the citywide Curbside Composting program.
Fines for composting violations were last in effect in April 2025. After less than three weeks of enforcement, however, former Mayor Eric Adams paused fines on most city buildings, claiming a need to give more time to adapt to the mandatory program. Ten months later, DSNY is back to issuing tickets to buildings that fail to properly separate their organics (food scraps and yard waste) from their trash.
“Since Jan. 1, we have been enforcing across the board, not just the high-density repeat offenders that we had been enforcing for much of 2025,” DSNY Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani wrote in a message to West Side Rag.
So far this year, through February 10th, DSNY has issued 414 summonses to buildings for failure to separate food and yard waste from other trash. Enforcement likely would have yielded more citations if the weather were milder, Gragnani noted, since the recent snowstorm and freezing weather have forced DSNY to pull double-duty on snow removal and trash collection.
Fines to buildings that fail to set out compost bins range from $50 for a first offense to up to $200 for the third and subsequent offenses. Fines for failing to separate compost (e.g., putting trash in the compost bin) are lower for smaller buildings compared to larger ones (with nine units or more). Details on enforcement fines are available – HERE.
Brown bins for food scraps and yard waste have become ubiquitous on the Upper West Side and across the city, but despite some bright spots, data show that participation in the program has been lackluster so far.
In fall 2024, shortly after the program started, the city’s capture rate of compost was less than 5%, according to research by Baruch College Associate Professor Samantha MacBride. “Capture rate” is a calculation showing the portion of organic waste that is set out for separate collection in composting bins, compared to the total amount of organic waste produced by residents. (For example, if 50 pounds of compost were set out by residents out of a possible 100 pounds that they generated, the capture rate would be 50%.)
While DSNY’s first enforcement effort last spring was brief, MacBride’s analysis shows that it made a significant difference in the amount of compost that was collected, doubling the city’s capture rate to approximately 10%.
DSNY issued more than 4,000 violations in April 2025, according to MacBride’s paper, which concluded that the awareness of enforcement, rather than the fines themselves, had led to an improvement. “An important, and counterintuitive, finding was that rate of ticketing did not correlate with improvements in the capture rate,” she wrote.
MacBride also found that the level of participation in curbside composting varies by neighborhood. While Manhattan lags all other boroughs in capture rate, the Upper West Side is a standout performer, with a 13.5% capture rate as of spring 2025.
More recent data on the neighborhood’s capture rate isn’t available, but the overall tonnage of compost collected is on an upward trajectory, according to statistics from DSNY on NYC’s Open Data portal. In the month of October 2024, when the residential program started, the UWS set out 129 tons of compost. In the month of December 2025, that number had increased to more than 318 tons.
On a call with the Rag, MacBride said that in addition to enforcement, more targeted outreach to communities is needed to increase the capture rate. She suggested using insights from the sanitation workers who are out in the field.
“Every community district is a sanitation district, and it has its own garage. Those workers at the garage know the district intimately, right? Because they’re out there every day,” said MacBride, who used to work at DSNY for nearly 20 years.
DSNY spokesperson Gragnani described several ways in which the agency is continuing to do outreach, including “social media, conversations and presentations to building supers, and the issuing of warnings and summonses.”
“We know that increasing participation takes time, and we continue working to remind New Yorkers that composting is required, and incredibly simple,” he wrote. “Just set out food and yard waste in a container on your recycling day.”
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They cant get the garbage picked up but they can enforce this. Recycling, composting, its all nonsense.
You are so right. Walk by Columbus Ave by W96, W97, W 100. It’s a pigsty..
Garbage everywhere and watch out for the dog poop. Omg. It’s a horror.
It’s Mamdani’s fault. The poop is everywhere.
Garbage is a dirty business and it definitely does get picked up…the whole system should be reformed and improved. That’s pretty obvious.
Recycling of plastic is sheer nonsense, unfortunately. We can thank the plastic industry for concocting and pushing it and politicians everywhere for perpetuating it.
Big plastic doesn’t exist the way big tech does.
Unlike recycling, composting truly does minimize waste and garbage. It is truly renewable, and a fascinating and useful process! Check out this article to see where NYC composting goes – https://citylimits.org/see-it-how-nyc-turns-food-yard-waste-into-big-apple-compost/
U.S. garbage for the next 1,000 years could fit into a single landfill 35 miles wide and 100 yards deep. Composting is unnecessary. If you want to fine but forcing it on others based on misinformation is wrong.
incredible content thank you. i’ve noticed it is harder and harder to find this level of insight and intelligence outside of a youtube livestream comments section and i applaud introducing it to west side rag
Dream on and stay grumpy or get your information from a different source.
It’s a money-grab, plain & simple.
Oh yeah, big dirt really wants your hard-earned banana peels.
Composting is easy and helps deal with the rat problem. Some people are too lazy, and they can face the fines for not cleaning up after themselves like adults.
Totally agree, the majority of things we put in recycling bin are not recycled . Everything in the supermarket is wrapped in plastic, yet we have to drink soda through paper straws, ridiculous
Garbage in, garbage out
Mamdani in, Mamdani OUT!
You tell ‘em Mark! It’s Mamdani’s fault! Jk I think Mark is a bag of Nuts4Nuts.
Thanks to Scott Etkin for his excellent continued coverage of the composting program. Disheartening to hear the capture rate is so low, even on the “standout” Upper West Side. I hope the numbers improve as warm weather arrives and city enforcement intensifies. Personally I’m very happy to collect my food scraps and houseplant cuttings for the program; it’s no trouble, and my regular garbage is now minimal compared to what it used to be—and it never gets smelly!
This in a city where bicycles run red lights, go wrong way e-bikes hit people and no fine, not separating garbage,is a fine? when I see 10% people not paying bus fare, when fed say no pollution and no vaccines, you punish people for their garbage, come on, something is wrong here.
All these things are not mutually exclusive.
??? Because some laws are enforced laxly does not entail that all laws, or even just laws about composting, should be enforced laxly. But yeah, about buses – they say fare evasion is close to 50%.
Definitely; it’s at least that, and subways perhaps even higher % ride-stealing.
Agree, Charles, that a lot is wrong these days, but composting is something we can all feel good about. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a singe step:)
Feeling good is great , separating spoiled food for my tenants not GOOD worst yet FINE me for people’s behavior, im all for the improvement of our environment, Im against the thinking that its the landlord responsibility to now go through bags and take out organic matter, people used to move their car for the sweeper now good luck the city is filthy, What is the fine for not cleaning the street, We don’t need any new laws, enforce the ones already in the books. COUNCIL IS NOT DOING GOOD WORK.
Sure there are other problems to address – there always will be. I hope you are advocating to the appropriate city agencies/personnel accordingly. And I hope you are not advocating for the Dept of Sanitation to scrap or make less effective a beneficial program until other city problems deemed more critical are remedied.
Even the bottle deposits are becoming problematic now.
Bottle deposit was $0.05 in 1983 when it started. It should be close to $0.20 now just for inflation. If you want to see results, increase it to $0.25 at least. People would be more invested in returning them, not just the homeless. And if they don’t, maybe it would reduce the homeless problem!
How so?
No deposit on bottles in NJ ( where I now live ).
Meant 90% do not pay.
Thanks Scott for thorough reporting on composting. Always happy to read your consistently good environmental reporting.Dsny used to participate in lobby education on composting. They should bring it back.
Buenas noches soy dueño de la casa 2235sedgwick ave apt4 bronx ny 10468 y fui multado con dos ticket por un supervisor de sanitecion por tener los cubos de basuras frente a my casa, esban hay por orden del alcalde Eric adam. el estaba supuestos ponerle un aviso primero en las puertas de las casas diciéndoles qué renuevan los cubos de basuras del frente de las casas y no darle ticket okey.
Lo siento, Frank. Parece un mix-up. Puede ir al departmento de sanitacion por explicar y contestar la multa?
This writer is complaining that a sanitation supervisor fined him, issuing him two tickets by order of Mayor Adams. The writer argues that he (the supervisor) ought to have first only posted a warning on each of the houses telling the owners to place the composting bins in front of their buildings, and not ticketed them.
Plus…. When random looks put dog waste in the bin and the sanitation guys wont take it…. And when sometimes the bin is just dumped in with the regular garbage…. Just sayin’
Composting is nice in theory, but forcing it and making it mandatory is overreach.
I don’t have space for 3 containers of garbage in my 1 bedroom apt
“This is a minor inconvenience for me, therefore I am ok with everyone else being forced to do the same”
What size containers, walter?
We put ours in a compostable bag, a fairly small amount, in the freezer, then into the building’s bin each week. We used to take it to neighborhood collections, such as W.97th & Amst. greenmarket or the La Perla Community Garden on W.105th. Happy to do it!
my compost container is a tupperware I keep in my fridge. this keeps it from smelling. when it gets full I take it to the brown bin downstairs. easy
I’m not producing enough garbage that I need a 3rd bin. I rarely have enough material to fill a small zip lock bag which I keep in my fridge.
The reason all New Yorkers should care about (and comply with) composting is rat reduction. Putting food waste into the plastic bins, not into plastic bags that are easily ripped into by rats every night, is a significant thing we can do to make our neighborhoods more sanitary by removing rats’ food source. This is a good program that needs more education and positive PR, and is worth enforcing.
…or we could just install locking trash bins in the street like sane people.
NYC faces multi-billion dollar deficits for FY2026 and FY2027 and they have money to waste on this nonsense? Idiots.
Actually, composting saves the city money. We pay enormous fees to dump our garbage, and diverting food waste to the digester reduces these costs.
Who pays for the digester?
If buildings supplied countertop compost buckets and disposable bags plus gave better instructions perhaps more people would compost. But many tenants don’t even seem to know the basic disposal rules for paper and plastic/metal/glass! Education precedes enforcement.
I put my scraps in a bag in the freezer: coffee grinds, tea bags, egg shells, unused leftovers. Bringing the bag to the bin is no problem for me. Still, I have to agree that expecting all of NYC to cooperate is a very big ask. Do we even have the facilities to process what would amount to 8 million people composting? Seems doubtful. And then there is the matter of diligence, or the lack thereof. My UWS building was populated by lawyers, professionals, editors, dancers–intelligent people, some of whom just couldn’t be bothered to recycle by the rules.
You are obviously a civic-minded individual, as opposed to your “intelligent” neighbors who can’t be bothered. I would just say that the expectation of any program is not 100% participation: the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. This is still a nascent program that can benefit from further public education and operational improvements over time.
Compost is picked up in my Queens neighborhood only once/ week. The bin tends to be very heavy… much heavier than the garbage, metal/glass/plastic or paper recycle bins. On quite a number of pickups, NYC Sanitation workers have left decaying organic food material at the bottom of the bin… which remains there until the pickup the following week! Very smelly after 2 weeks. Then the following week, the bottom is still not cleared again! I can see frustrated citizens not wanting to compost.
Can the NYC Dept of Sanitation pick up our compost twice per week? And regular garbage only once? By the time everything is recycled, there’s hardly any garbage!
Buy the composting bags & put those tied in a knot inside the brown bins. It’s what I do to keep from getting food left behind. I live in Maspeth Queens & get recycling, composting & garbage pickup same day on Wednesday (albeit maybe different times). However I was quite disappointed after observing a sanitation truck with two separate disposal compartments (which u would assume was one for regular garbage & one for composting), the worker threw both garbage bag & composting bag in same side!!! So why am I going thru all the trouble for????
Don’t forget the inevitable maggot infestation of the compost can.
This is a stupid enforcement scheme designed to make the city money!
This is only a program, composting, not a law, and they can fine you for it? Worrisome overreach. And as for me, I won’t be composting any time soon.
It is literally a law. LL85 of 2023.
Too many silly laws.
This program is a classic example of the absurdity of luxury beliefs. In a city of 8 million mostly working-class people who are struggling to stay in the game at all, the city makes their life a little bit harder, with no corresponding benefit, and fines them if they don’t comply. All so that well-off social activists get to feel better about themselves. And why not? Everyone has a big enough fridge to store their compost for a few days, right? Let them eat cake…and then dispose of it *properly* of course!
Or said another way: it’s a real shocker that the Upper West Side – where installation of trash bins in public parking spaces is met with vicious opprobrium – would “outperform” on this particular test of limousine liberalism.
This is about luxury beliefs and so is the repurposing of parking too.
I’m as progressive as they come (socially) but this is the biggest joke. Composting doesn’t make a lick of a difference when billionaires can fly private jets 15 minutes rather than drive/commute. But sure, let’s create yet another city program to focus on the most trivial of matters.
Count me out.
In NYC it’s not about being eco-friendly. We have to PAY other places to take our trash. Diverting compost from the regular waste stream saves disposal fees.
With attitudes like most of the negative comments written here is a perfect example of why the enviornment and the lack of interest in it will be the death of us all
You aren’t going to die from garbage being in the garbage. Calm down.
So if apartment buildings fail to do so, the fines will be imposed on renters and owners of apartments?
Don’t scream at me about this, but I do happen to live on the left coast half the year, where we’ve segregated our food waste for a long time. It’s harder with apt living, for sure, but in NY, I use my newspaper (or waste office paper) to line a little bin and take it to the downstairs container when it’s full or smelly. I keep it with a lid on it in a corner, or in frig. The workers don’e “leave” the gooey stuff in the bottom, it’s simply sticking there due to weight of the moist content of other waste on top compresses it. If the building workers would put down some of the shredded paper from their super’s office in the bottom, the bins would all empty just fine with the mechanical lifting and assuming the machines do a shake or two.
Kvetching about composting and suggesting that there are far more important issues is too simplistic – the landfills simply cannot continue to fill up with waste that could easily turn into something more useful.
I was president of a sanitation agency that sent its biosolids to farms for “alternative cover”; then we began to use the biosolids to produce methane to power our plant..
All of our composting at the urban level will lead toward better utilization of the resources that we are treating as “garbage” and expecting generations to come to deal with.
Thank you; one would hope that the benefits are obvious. (I think you can tell from so much snarling here, though.) I am not sure NYS has the infrastructure in place yet for methane production and helping farms. Soon, please, NYC & NYS! It’s on us, as the fake feds destroy everything we need.
Can the council stop making this stupid rules its just a way to take some money from the small landlords, do you really believe that across NYCHA BUILDINGS some one is going to dive in the garbage to separate food from regular trash, Humans have made up their mind to finish earth , so giving us a fine not going to amount to squat , MUSK EXPLODED ROCKETS OVER THE CARIBBEAN, whats his fine , more GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS 🤔 Please stop the bullying of poor working people.
It’s not simple. There is one container in mu building in the basement. I’m not going down there three times a day to dispose of my food waste. If we had compost containers on each floor, no problem. Our apartments are too small to keep a compost container in our miniscule kitchens. This program was not well thought out for a city.
Hi. Do you have space for a flexible (rearrangeable) compostable bag in your fridge or freezer?
Individual apartment buildings should do more to encourage composting among their tenants or owners. I often seem to be the only one using the compost bin in my coop’s basement. I’m pleasantly surprised that my food garbage does not smell (and I do not use a filter in my personal compost bin), although if I have fish debris, I will bring the compost right down. And composting my food garbage has the added benefit of alleviating a small percentage of my guilt when I have to throw out vegetables that were never cooked and are beyond use. 😉
The vegetable guilt – you are not alone.
First focus on methane production from the sewerage treatments plants (about 14 in NYC). Only half of the methane is captured the other half goes into landfills from the sludge.
The increased efficiency of the treatment plants would be much more sensible.
The current use of garbage disposals in NYC is over 20 percent, the projection increases to 38 percent by 2035. All that methane could be processed directly through the sewerage treatment system.
Better carbon footprint than driving trucks around picking up compost.
Once the treatment plants were made more efficient than maybe mandate large buildings to have a general garbage disposal system. The garbage disposal I have in my house takes just about everything. I don’t use the garbage disposal that much as I compost in a tumbler for my backyard.
I find it surprising that participation isn’t better. We have found composting easy (facilitated by our building, of course), and oddly satisfying.
My brother’s family lives on about 40 acres in a rural area, and my SIL keeps chickens, which means they save food scraps because chickens eat pretty much anything (including chicken). She has a big steel scrap bowl on the kitchen counter that she takes out to the coop once a day. This does inevitably attract wildlife, so the chickens are fenced in and the 12 guage stays nearby. This all makes sense there. I’m struggling to see how it makes sense in a city
I think there is low compliance because many are confused between “compost” & “food waste. ” The latter includes meat & fish scraps which are not compostable. Perhaps the Rag could write a clarifying article mentioning also the type of bag to be used for each type of disposal.
The city’s composting program does actually take ALL food waste, including meat and fish scraps. It’s large enough to handle those unlike a small backyard compost heap.
Before mandatory composting began, I would come home at night and see as many as half a dozen or more rats running back and forth across the sidewalk to and from the black garbage bags that contained ALL garbage, including food-related garbage. (I live in an UWS building on a side street in the 80s.)
Within a few months of the start of mandatory composting, I was seeing fewer and fewer rats until, at some point, not only did I see none, but the ones who were living in the tree pits “moved out” because there was nothing left for them.
Thankfully, I live on a block that is nearly 100% compliant with composting. As a result, I have not seen a single rat in at least a year or two.
Certainly as far as rats are concerned, composting WORKS. Our block is proof of that.
> I was seeing fewer and fewer rats until, at some point, not only did I see none, but the ones who were living in the tree pits “moved out” because there was nothing left for them.
…and then everybody clapped.
I love these anecdotes-as-evidence. Even if true (protip: they’re not true), I’m sure there was *nothing* else going on that might have affected the rat population. It’s all because of the composting.
If you’re an “actual scientist,” I’m an actual brain surgeon. And while my information may be anecdotal, it is 100% true. And no, there was nothing else going on on my block (on which I’ve lived for over 60 years) that would have accounted for the sudden and complete disappearance of rats – particularly “coincidentally” to the imposition of composting.
Your unsupported cynicism is noted.
What do they do with it after collection?
“After DSNY picks up curbside compost, it is brought to facilities to be turned into nutrient-rich soil or renewable energy, rather than rotting in a landfill. Material is primarily processed via anaerobic digestion into biogas (energy) at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant or turned into compost at the Staten Island Compost Facility.”
In our neighborhood in Northeast Queens which includes one and two family houses as well as 3 to story apartment buildings homeowners and tenants immediately complied with the composting rule back in April. But we all observed Sanitation putting the compost and regular garbage together in the one compartment. Throughout those weeks of enforcement not once was a dual bin truck dispatched to collect compostable and regular refuse separately. It was evident to the community that it was a money grab by the city issuing fines while Sanitation was not really composting.
Composting is NOT difficult, in spite of all the whining here. Put a small compostable bag in your freezer or fridge, put your food scraps in it , every few days take it out and put it in the bin. So not hard to do. Your food trimmings will be transformed, you will minimize landfills, with minimal inconvenience. Not at all like the plastic recycling problem.
I am not keeping rotting food in my freezer. I am not keeping rotting food in a compost bin in my kitchen. I don’t have room. But even if I did my biggest concern with composting is all these people keeping food scraps in their apartments and attracting bugs. (Especially roaches.) Even if I were to keep compost in my freezer, who knows if my neighbor is doing it properly. I think mandating people compost and keep rotting food in their apartments is too much to ask in NYC.
Your understanding of science is clearly limited. If it is in the freezer, it cannot rot. In fact, putting a rotting item (like bread) into a plastic bag and putting it in the freezer STOPS any further rotting. I keep my composting in a large ziploc bag in my freezer. I have never had an issue with further rotting or smells. I simply take that bag down to the basement every few days (when it is filled up) and empty it into the large composting bin. It takes exactly 3-5 minutes.
And if food waste is put in a composting bin (either in one’s home or in a building bin), it should not be attracting bugs, since the composting bins are created to prevent that.
You have lots of reason for not composting – NONE of which are accurate or valid.
Yes it’s just the administration of mayors screwing New York City people instead of giving discounts they just keep raising the cost of living and making it harder by separating organic for people and finding them a way to make money for this city of New York what a shame the people have voted for
I kind of don’t understand why people don’t do this. It’s not that onerous! I live in a tiny apt. up here but I have room in my garbage can for two bags, regular trash & composting.
It all ends up in the same place…
Nope.
“After DSNY picks up curbside compost, it is brought to facilities to be turned into nutrient-rich soil or renewable energy, rather than rotting in a landfill. Material is primarily processed via anaerobic digestion into biogas (energy) at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant or turned into compost at the Staten Island Compost Facility.”
Does mandatory composting include public housing? If it includes public housing , and a building is noncompliant, does DSNY fine NYCHA?
Because NYCHA is federally funded, the City cannot mandate composting in their buildings. However, composting IS being introduced into NYCHA buildings, though it is a slow process. But even if it is, and even if it is widespread, the City would not be able to fine them under the law if they failed to comply or stopped.
Can’t believe how divisive composting is. Everyone’s a waste management expert these days. Scientists largely agree that it makes sense and that’s good enough for me.
It isn’t a big imposition, and has lowered the rat populations on my street and from the looks of it, every other street I walk down.
Having a little box on the counter isn’t difficult. It doesn’t smell if you avoid putting certain things in it (google that) and I have to take out my regular trash much less often.
How can the city enforce the rule and issue fines when my order for the bins have been 6 months ago and I still haven’t received them?
I suspect that a max fine of $200 will just be considered additional operating cost in many buuldings and cheaper than the additional staff hours to monitor and properly separate trash from tenants or owners who just don’t care.
Those who think composting makes no difference, is an expense, and we should just dump everything in landfills should spend some time in our many parks and greenspaces. Producing our own compost saves taxpayer money for maintenance – we can create our own instead of purchasing it – in addition to reducing stench and vermin.
I was very much against the idea until it became mandatory at which point we started doing it. I must admit it made a substantial improvement to our quality of life. Compost is collected into a small canister on countertop, and then stored in the freezer until we take it downstairs to the bin. We got rid of our garbage bin. We virtually have no garbage any more (just recycling). It’s really amazing.
What a out News paper, do they go in recycling bin?
I find that newspapers left in recycling bin were not picked up so need to know what to do about it.
There’s a sanitation supervisor with the name Caban who is aggressive in writing tickets. He kind of looks like Big Pun the rapper. Maybe West Side Rag should interview him?
where can I buy some bins