The Lower East Side Ecology Center’s compost program in East River Park was the first of its kind in the city. We’re helping this important climate-centric community group to continue.
By Wendy Brawer
Every bit of food scrap that goes into the drop-off bins provided by the Lower East Side Ecology Center (LESEC) at the Tompkins Greenmarket (Sundays), Grand & Clinton (Mondays) and four other locations is destined to add organic nutrients to enrich soil. This is used by community gardeners, in street tree beds, in our parks and even for our potted plants at home. Through its Compost Collection program, the Ecology Center introduced the climate-smart idea of composting to countless New Yorkers and spearheaded and sustained efforts to compost food waste in Manhattan.
In NYC, it’s the community compost groups that process your food scraps. Although successful at keeping these organic materials out of the landfill and building social resiliency, these hard-working groups have been ‘thanked’ with a $3 million budget cut by NYC. That impacted 115 green jobs, cut 200 dropoff locations and ended entire programs.
LES Ecology Center is one of only three community compost groups that survived the recent budget cuts, but their 21 drop off sites are down to just six. In response to budget cuts, East River Park Action is pitching in by donating $2,000 to LESEC. This will help them keep their drop-off stations and operations going. That will also help you and all our neighbors continue to do the right thing with food waste.
Did you know reducing food waste is #1 method for reducing climate impacts by reducing carbon in the atmosphere? (from Project Drawdown, a climate solutions organization)
Photo of Union Square compost dropoff courtesy of Lower East Side Ecology Center
Coming Home
The good news is that the busy, productive compost yard that was at the south end of East River Park–before East Side Coastal Resiliency construction–is slated to return. That means neighborhood food scraps will, once again, be composted right here instead of relying on energy-wasting trucking to distant processing locations.
Currently, the Ecology Center’s offices are based at Seward Park (which is looking glorious due to their efforts). Since the fate of the historic Fire Boat House in East River Park–their previous base–is uncertain, we can stand with the Ecology Center and advocate for a new building in East River Park to house their important work as stewards of the park and as environmental program providers for students and New Yorkers of all ages.
Keep It Going
And we can join their events (and find other stewardship opportunities with Stuy Cove, where the native plant garden which is coming back to life past the north end of East River Park around 20th Street). Or we can join a hands-on Parks Department stewardship session (the next LES day is June 15th). Even while our beloved park is still a construction zone, we can all help make our city greener and cooler.
Let’s keep supporting and advocating for the amazing Lower East Side Ecology Center – and bringing them our food scraps, too.
For neighborhood residents, it’s worth going the extra distance to a LES Ecology Center dropoff. Wendy Brawer never liked to waste her food scraps, and has been bringing them to an Ecology Center drop off since the mid-90’s. As director of Green Map System, she’s even made a Green Map of composting in Manhattan to help raise its status as an everyday climate action. Compost = a cooler, greener NYC.
About the orange bins
NYC’s orange bin program accepts all food waste including meat and fish. Map with locations.
Combined with curbside-collected food scraps from the other boroughs, this is made into biogas. It’s used by National Grid in a problematic waste-to-renewable natural gas program at the ‘gas eggs’ in Greenpoint Brooklyn.
Community composting to make soil has a greater benefit to our communities since aerobic composting (as in soil making) reduces methane emissions. The orange bins’ anaerobic digestion (used for biogas) releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
For neighborhood residents, it’s worth going the extra distance to a LES Ecology Center dropoff.
Wendy Brawer never liked to waste her food scraps, and has been bringing them to an Ecology Center drop off since the mid-90’s. As director of Green Map System, she’s even made a Green Map of composting in Manhattan to help raise its status as an everyday climate action. Compost = a cooler, greener NYC.
Adding this article as new locations have been proposed for soil production, not for methane (and it has more details on this can of worms, too)
https://citylimits.org/2024/06/05/bill-seeks-to-boost-nycs-composting-capacity-with-more-borough-based-sites/