Haki Compost Collective Roosevelt Island Food Scrap Drop Off Site Is Back Every Saturday At Motorgate Plaza - NYC Sanitation Department Begins Citywide Mandatory Curbside Compost Collection Including Roosevelt Island - Watch Video Of DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch Explaining The Curbside Compost Collection Program

The Roosevelt Island Haki Food Compost Collective (Haki) returned to Roosevelt Island at the Motorgate Plaza last Saturday 

after suspending service in December 2023 due to NYC Mayoral budget cuts.

According to Haki:

Hi Haki Compost Collective family, droppers and supporters,

We had a picture perfect day last Saturday October 5th to kick off the first Saturday back serving the Roosevelt Island community after a ten month hiatus.

Nearly 70 neighbors dropped off their organics to our green bins and we collected 454 pounds of food scraps that will be processed into compost with the return of longtime compost partners Big Reuse. In spring compost will return to our urban soils including island landscape, tree pits, gardens and even house plants.

We wish to thank the Lenape Center for giving us the name Haki and all the neighbors who stopped by to express the joy of our return. It feels good to have a healthy option and divert valuable material from going to landfill.

We will be at the Motorgate Plaza every Saturday from 9 am to 2 pm year round. Please stop by to find out more. Haki Compost Collective volunteers will be on hand to answer questions, tell you more about volunteer opportunities and of course collect your food scraps.

Please spread the word and share these flyers and tips on what to drop-off with your neighbors.

And Save the Date for the 10/20 Compost Carnival at Battery Park.

See you at the green bins soon,

Corinna & Christina (Haki Compost Collective volunteers)

Also, the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) is expanding a mandatory citywide Curbside Composting program this month. According to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC):

... New York City Department of Sanitation is also launching a new composting initiative citywide, and Roosevelt Island buildings will be included in the program. DSNY will be delivering composting bins to each building, and residents will be able to discard food scraps and food-soiled paper in those bins, which will then be transported to a larger composting container in the AVAC yard. DSNY will then collect the food scraps weekly and transport them to a composting facility in Staten Island. Please reach out to your building management for more information on when your building will be receiving its collection bin. To learn more, please visit the DSNY Composting site.

The NYC Mayor's Office reported on October 7: 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch today announced the completion of the roll-out of automatic, guaranteed, free, simple, weekly collection of compostable material to every New Yorker across the five boroughs. When trucks left DSNY garages serving the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan just after 5:00 AM today, they were making good on a promise that the past administration had made for over a decade. That promise was long derided as impossible, but Mayor Adams committed to making it a reality in his 2023 State of the City address. This program, which began in Queens in the fall of 2022 and expanded to Brooklyn in the fall of 2023, is now permanent and offered citywide — something achieved with a focus on sustainability, cleanliness, equity, and efficiency.

“It’s simple: when food scraps end up in black bags on the street, they become rat food or methane emissions. said Mayor Adams. “Starting today, curbside composting is free and pain-free on every block and in every borough — something prior administrations have tried, but we got it done. I’m grateful to Commissioner Tisch and the dedicated sanitation workers who work day-in, day-out to make this program possible and keep our streets clean for New Yorkers.”....

Trucks are rolling out in the Bronx (and Manhattan & Staten Island)!

Starting this week, ALL residents now have access to the nation's largest and easiest curbside compost program. Collect your food & yard waste, put it in a bin, and set it out on your recycling day. pic.twitter.com/iw5sxDSDDU

— NYC Sanitation (@NYCSanitation) October 7, 2024

DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the new CurbsideComposting program during a September 25, 2024 roundtable presentation to the NYC Ethnic & Community media.

I asked Commissioner Tisch:

... do you have any metrics on how program has worked so far in the boroughs and will the program be working on Roosevelt Island?

Commissioner Tisch answered:

Yes. So let me start with the Roosevelt Island question and then we'll turn to numbers.

Absolutely the program will work on Roosevelt Island and on Roosevelt Island it will be slightly different than the way the rest of the City Works. The compost on Roosevelt Island will be handled the exact same way that recycling is handled on Roosevelt Island so again it will be set out on your recycling day. It is then taken to a centralized location where we then come and collect....

I also asked:

On Roosevelt Island I think we have three or four of the composting bins. I've been trying to get statistics on the use of those bins on either a weekly or monthly basis but haven't been able to do that yet. Is that possible?

and:

Are there metrics on compliance rates by Property Owners.

Commissioner Tisch answered:

... Yes we can get that information to you absolutely. You're asking for the one specifically on Roosevelt Island, Yes we can get that to you....

... In terms of data ... last year to give you a sense, we diverted 260 million pounds of organic material...

In regard to compliance rates by property owners, Commissioner Tisch said:

... not yet and the reason why not yet is because we have not yet begun our enforcement of organic waste separation. As I mentioned earlier that will begin in the spring of 2025 and the idea there is as I mentioned before we want to give all New Yorkers, all 8.3 million New Yorkers, an opportunity to develop the muscle memory to learn how they're going to start separating their food and yard waste before we start any meaningful enforcement and once enforcement starts then we will have more data around compliance and or lack of compliance....

Here's video of the full NYC Curbside Composting roundtable. 

Shortly afterwards, a DSNY spokesperson reported:

You had asked about the use of Smart Composting Bins on Roosevelt Island. From the start of 2024 through the end of September, the bin at River Road was opened 4,199 times, the bin at West Road was opened 1,194 times, and the bin by the tram was opened 4,208 times.

I followed up:

Do you have info on the amount by weight collected in each bin too?

The DSNY spokesperson replied:

We do not weigh the contents of each bin each time we empty it. Also, many of our Smart Composting Bins are collected on the same trucks that pick up compostable material from schools, so we do not have weight data specific to the Smart Composting Bins.

I asked:

Do you keep any metrics on the smart bins other than number of openings?

If you do, what are they for the Roosevelt Island bins?

DSNY spokesperson replied:

The number of opens is our primary metric for measuring smart bin use.

More info on the DSNY Curbside Compost Program and Haki Comost Collective Roosevelt Island Saturday Food Scrap Drop Off collection site.