Roosevelt Island Girl Scouts Think Big About Zero Waste For World Thinking Day - Learn About Food Scrap Composting And Reducing Waste From The NYC Compost Project Hosted By Big Reuse Staff

Roosevelt Island Girl Scout Troop 3001 Leader Aiesha Eleusizov shares these photos and reports:

Girl Scouts from Troop 3001 Think Big about Zero Waste for World Thinking Day

Girl Scouts take on big ideas with the help of NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse to reduce impact on the environment for World Thinking Day, an annual celebration where Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world think and act upon important global issues.

Monday, February 22, is the globally recognized World Thinking Day and this year’s theme is “Connect”! With the Big Apple's 0x30 initiative set to achieve zero waste to landfills by 2030. What better way to celebrate Thinking Day than to “connect” with the earth by learning more about composting and reducing our waste? NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse staff member Erycka DeJesus and Barbara Museing,

taught Girl Scout Troop 3001 all about how food scraps can "connect" them to the earth!

Erycka and Barbara taught Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts on Roosevelt Island how food scraps, collected every Saturday at their drop-off site (9:30am-3:30pm) near the Wengerd Farmers Market, is directly connected to the dark, crumbly "black gold" compost that is made at a local Community Compost Processing site! That's right! They showed them how their food scraps are turned into compost and when applied to trees and plants in the community, provides our green friends with valuable nutrients.

The girls learned about reducing, reusing and recycling and had fun sorting waste into trash, recycling and composting.

They learned that our garbage in NYC travels all the way to land-fills in states as far as Ohio, so it is really important for us to reduce the amount of trash that gets trucked (which then pollutes our air) so far away! According to Department of Sanitation's 2012 commercial waste study, food scraps and other organics constitute 35% of our waste stream. Bringing your food scraps to a drop-off site keeps it from the land-fills where it anaerobically decomposes and off-gasses methane, adding to global warming! The girls enjoyed smelling the warm, earthy compost and learning all about the recipe of “browns and greens” and natural critters that turn our waste into food for plants.

The NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse also left the troop with many resources the girls can explore to learn more about composting and recycling.The girls were challenged to try to reduce their trash at home by bring their food scraps to the Saturday Farmer’s Market to be composted! We would like to challenge the community to join our girls in dropping off your food scraps to help to make the world (and Roosevelt Island) a better place!

A very special thank you to Erycka and Barbara from the NYC Compost Project hosted by Big Reuse and to Manhattan Park for sponsoring our meeting space!!

You can drop your food scraps

Images From Roosevelt Island Garden Club

every Saturday morning to mid afternoon

at the Roosevelt Island Farmers Market.