The month of April celebrates Earth Day and also heralds mandatory
requirements to
NYC’s residential building’s
food scrap waste disposal rules. The good news is residents have lots of
options however understanding the true end use of your food scraps can be
unclear.
Haki Compost Collective,
a local grassroots group of volunteers supporting community composting
efforts in partnership with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) and
Big Reuse, put together an easy to understand comparative sheet for residents.
We invite you to stop by any Saturday year round at Motorgate plaza near
Foodtown from 9 am to 2 pm with your food scraps or questions. A volunteer
will be at the green bins.
Have a look at the poster below to better understand the difference between
the City's
orange and brown bins initiative
and Roosevelt Island's Haki Composting Collective.
Kitchen scraps are treated as sewage and digested as biogas (methane gas)
for energy to power the Newtown Creek Wastewater facility.
A percentage of that methane is extra and flared into the air. The flared
methane is a pollutant much worse than carbon dioxide and has a lifespan
of over a decade.
A bi-product of this process (sludge) is sent to landfill as it is not
suitable for farmers due to the plastic bags within and important
nutrients don't get returned to the ground.
This is NOT composting but is not as damaging as sending organic scraps to
landfill which emit methane gas. Composting means turning food scraps into
compost (a nutrient-rich soil amendment).
Compost is water absorbing which helps reduce flooding during storms or
flooding events when added to city soils. It also is nutrient-rich which
reinvigorates depleted soils and feeds trees and flowers.
If you wish to help the environment best, take your plant-based food scraps
(including egg shells) to the green Haki bins by Foodtown at Motorgate Plaza
year round on Saturdays from 9am and 2pm.
If you want, you can put your animal-based food scraps into the orange and
brown bins for methane gas capture.
So let’s eat more of the food in our fridge, waste less by making soups with
scraps and take any remaining food scraps to the green bins each Saturday at
Motorgate from 9 am to 2 pm.
New to composting? Collect for a few days at the end of the week and drop
off to us every Saturday at Motorgate Plaza from 9 AM to 2 PM. Your actions
matter and whichever method you choose we wish you to know the outcome and
your impact.
Here's a
December 2024 interview
with volunteers from the Roosevelt Island Haki Compost Collective.
Roosevelt Island is fortunate to have many local non profit organizations run by residents offering a wide variety of services and programs for our community. Take a look back at what several of them have accomplished in 2024 and plans for 2025.
WOW! In just 13 Saturdays we collected 7,093 pounds of veggie and fruit scraps for the Big Reuse compost program.
2025 kicks off this Saturday, January 4th and yes, the Haki volunteers will be on hand to collect your food scraps in the green bins from 9 am to 2 pm at Motorgate Plaza.
Volunteers welcome!
Please write to find out how you can be part of the Haki Compost Collective - Hakicompost@gmail.com
Corinna & Christina (Volunteers for Haki)
Thank you for all the great work you do for Roosevelt Island!!!!
The Roosevelt Island Haki Compost Collective is back collecting your food scraps at the Motorgate Plaza every Saturday next to the Farmers Market. I spoke with 2 of the Haki volunteers last Saturday.
The compost program is back.
Thank you Roosevelt Islanders!
On October 5th, 2024 the food scrap drop-off collection for compost returned to Roosevelt Island in partnership with Big Reuse, RIOC and the all volunteer run Haki Compost Collective.
Every Saturday year round from 9 am to 2 pm at Motorgate Plaza your food scraps are collected by Haki and Big Reuse processes them into nutrient-rich compost to return to neighborhood landscapes, school and community gardens, sidewalk tree pits and neighbor’s houseplants.
Now New Yorkers have more options, they can send their scraps for methane gas capture to Newtown Creek through the resident brown bin and sidewalk orange bin programs and rejuvenate NYC soils through the Haki/Big Reuse Saturday green bin collection.
December 5th marked World Soil Day with a focus on measure, monitor and manage so here’s the success of the collectives efforts thanks to your participation…
Since the Oct 5th 2024 food scrap collection reopened Haki launched again with 17 rotating volunteers (including 5 new!) and welcomed 783 drop-offs, capturing over 100 pounds per hour each Saturday thanks to islanders
That is a collection total of 5,492 pounds over ten Saturdays - over 2 tons!
Since Haki started 4 years ago our neighborhood has diverted 205,231 pounds of scraps from landfill.
Pre-dating Haki, the island's Big Reuse food scrap collection which started in 2015 thanks to advocates like Julia Ferguson and others has collected is over 340,000 pounds of scraps which were processed into compost! That is equivalent to 84 SUV's!
Haki Compost welcomes new volunteers. Join an orientation then sign up for an hour on one Saturday a month or more it is up to you. Students welcome.
The next short orientation is this coming Saturday 12/14 from 11 am to 11:30 am. Come see if supporting this local effort is right for you.
Not available this Saturday? Please write to Haki Compost Collective at hakicompost@gmail.com to explore volunteering. Follow us on IG @hakicompost
Haki thanks the Lenape Center for giving us the name Haki which means earth, dirt, ground and land and the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) for their ongoing support.
The Roosevelt Island Saturday Farmers Market is relocating from Good Shepherd Plaza to their temporary winter home under the Motorgate Helix starting this Saturday, November 30.
According to Farmers Market vendor Israel Wengerd of Wengerd Farms:
The move is necessary to be out of the inclement winter weather.
The Roosevelt Island Farmers Market at Motorgate Plaza under the Helix is open early morning to mid afternoon on Saturdays in good weather and bad offering a wide variety
of healthy and delicious tasting fruits, vegetables
Greetings Haki Compost Collective volunteers, friends and droppers,
Your participation creates compost that not only amends our island soil with nutrients but soil with compost retains moisture very well aiding land in times of drought.
Recently we heard Lenape Center leaders present a school curriculum about their history which is being created in partnership with Columbia Teachers College for NYC. During their presentation at the Brooklyn Public Library, they taught words, including Haki - Mother Earth. We are grateful they helped name our Haki compost collective.
Since the re-start on October 5th over 500 drops have been accepted collecting nearly two tons of food scraps!
We also welcomed four new volunteers - Etay, Gael, Nick and Volker. And we look forward to growing numbers when the farmers market moves to join us at the Helix / Motorgate area on Saturday, November 30th.
Please spread the word that the green bin program (in partnership with Big Reuse and RIOC) collects food scraps for compost.
We also welcome volunteers of all ages and abilities to be a part of the collective and welcome students who wish for community service, please write to us at hakicompost@gmail.com.
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)
... 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.
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
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.
We are writing to send an important request from a Big Reuse newsletter. We
have another chance right away by next Tuesday morning to speak up to try to
save and refund this budget cut to our city before it is too late.
Please submit testimony for the City Council hearing on organic waste! (If
sending written testimony, please try to complete it by 8:00 a.m. Tuesday,
Feb. 27th!)
Next Tuesday, February 27 at 10am, the City Council will hold a hearing on
NYC's infrastructure for handling and processing organic waste. This hearing
is with the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management.
This is an opportunity to speak (again!) to our personal very positive
experiences with community composting & the NYC Compost Project.
Tell DSNY and the city council that we need these programs!
You can sign up to testify
via zoom or in-person. Written testimony may also be submitted on a document
or pdf.
We also recommend that you read more about this very important issue. We only
have 120 days to speak up again and to tell DSNY, the Mayor, and the City
Council about how important our community greening, environmental justice, and
social infrastructures are. When we are able to care for the earth locally in
our city neighborhoods, we also care for each other as the earth cares for us
in turn.
Tomorrow is the last day of the Roosevelt Island Haki Compost Collective Food Scrap collection drop off site for this year and for now, into next year.
At this time, it is not known if and when the site will return in 2024.
... The Haki Compost Collective thanks you for dropping off your food
scraps on Saturdays. Since November 2015, we have collectively diverted
over 341,017 pounds of food scraps from landfill, or 170 tons,
equivalent to 85 SUV's in weight!
Several dump truck loads of nutrient-rich compost have come back to the
Island trees, flowers and gardens and been given back to neighbors for
their house plants....
We have a few updates on the status of our food scrap drop-off site.
The mayoral budget cuts will end our direct partnership with Big Reuse, at least for the moment. The last day they will collect our material will be this Saturday, December 16. As per DSNY, all green toters need to be returned on that day.
Big
Reuse, like all the community composting organizations, is trying to
raise funds to continue composting at the Queensbridge site. Even if
they are able to maintain the site, they do not know if they will be
able to continue neighborhood collections. If you would like to donate to Big Reuse, our partners for the past 8 years, click here.
We don’t want to lose the NYC green bin program which is the only true
food scraps-to-compost program. The sidewalk orange bins burn food
scraps for energy. Their inefficiency has been at full display in city
council hearings as well as in the media. While the fight to keep
community composting is an uphill battle, it is not over yet. Please continue to:
Haki
Compost Collective volunteers are investigating alternative options if
Big Reuse is unable to continue to pick up our food scraps. We are
looking into
hiring a hauler who could take the scraps to a farm upstate to be composted
discussing with RIOC any options for composting
talking with other community composter partners around the city about their plans.
If you have any leads or ideas, please contact us!
In the meantime, because nothing is certain and we do not have a concrete plan, we will announce the following at the Haki table on Saturday:
"Due
to mayoral budget cuts that affect our partner Big Reuse, Haki must
take a winter break to regroup. We are actively pursuing other options. Please provide your email to get updates in January. In the meantime, please put your food scraps in the orange bins by the tram, Manhattan Park, and the Octagon.
Thank you so much for your support through the years!"
Roosevelt Island is a mixed income, racially diverse waterfront community situated in the East River of New York City between Manhattan and Queens and is jurisdictionally part of Manhattan. The Roosevelt Island Tramway, which connects Roosevelt Island to the rest of Manhattan, has become the iconic symbol of Roosevelt Island to its residents.
The Purpose of this Blog is to provide accurate and timely information about Roosevelt Island as well as a forum for residents to express opinions and engage in a dialogue to improve our community.
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