Our Bureau
New York, NY
NYC Department of Sanitation, Office of Ethnic and Community media held a roundtable ahead of the launch of Five-Borough Curbside Composting. DSNY Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch addressed the virtual roundtable attended by media persons and answered their queries. Curbside Composting is currently available to all residents in Brooklyn and Queens. Service is year-round every week, and collection is on the recycling day.
Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch joined the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) in April 2022, following over a decade of experience transforming government agencies to work more efficiently and effectively for New Yorkers.
The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) collects leaf and yard waste, food scraps, and food-soiled paper and turns it into compost or renewable energy.
It keeps New York City clean, safe, and healthy by collecting, recycling, and disposing of waste, cleaning streets, attacking the scourge of illegal dumping, and clearing snow and ice.
Commissioner Tisch informed that leaf and yard waste, food scraps, and food soiled paper can be composted. However, metal, glass, plastic and medical waste cannot be composted. This is the largest, easiest composting program ever where you simply place your material out and where all residential buildings must participate including single family homes, small apartment buildings, and multi-unit residential buildings.
She further added, in Fiscal Year 2024, DSNY diverted 260 million pounds of compostable material from landfill, 65 percent increase from two years ago. And that’s just from Brooklyn and Queens! The Citywide rollout of the largest, easiest curbside composting program ever will increase these numbers even more. Curbside composting is also available at every public school in New York City, which are 1,950 unique public schools, plus some private and charter schools.
Commissioner Tisch reiterated that there are 400 smart bins available across all 5 boroughs. There are few misconceptions also with regard to composting like it attracts rats and other rodents; it is complicated, meat, dairy cooked food can’t be composted. Through this informative session, DSNY spread the word and cleared the misconceptions about curbside composting. They are also doing door-to-door canvassing to make New Yorkers aware of the process of composting.
I’m in this 100%
Question- non vegetable does not go into compost? Y/N
Question- is there a way when brown organic bins are dumped they can be sightly banged to dislodge the bottom organics? Pails become disgusting.
Thank you.