By Elliot Zepeda

Tucked away between several Corona homes, the “Comadres Bordadoras” (or “Embroidery Comadres” in English) knit and gossip in the privacy of cherry tomato bushes and bell pepper leaves, nestled within their narrow community garden on 97th Street in Queens. For over a year, they have gathered every Monday morning at this street block association, where they unload not just the week’s chatter, but their compost too.

Although the municipal curbside composting program was first launched in Queens back in October 2022, Flaviana Linares, a founding member of the Embroidery Comadres, says she hasn’t seen a single composting bin on her street, just a few blocks from their community garden. “My landlord has just one large bin and wants us to put everything in it, no separating the waste,” she says.

Embroidery Comadres holding their weekly meeting at the 97th St Community Garden. Photo by E. Zepeda

As a result, the members of this community garden have been disposing some of their organic waste directly into the garden’s soil beds, bringing small plastic bags of food scraps whenever possible to help nurture their plants. 

However, with the new citywide curbside composting mandate across all five boroughs —which requires New Yorkers to separate organic waste from trash and place it in composting bins provided for weekly pickup on recycling day— these Queens residents worry they may not be able to comply with the regulations on such a large scale. “Many of us share apartments with other families, and there’s no space to store a week’s worth of food scraps,” Gabriela Paiero says. 

“Blessed and privileged are those of us who don’t have to share an apartment. But for those of us who do, it’s just not possible. My family is made up of five people, that thing would be full in a day,” Linares says. 

DSNY compost bin in West Harlem. Photo by E. Zepeda

Across the East River in Manhattan, 58th Street resident Neville Lala notes that kitchen garbage bins, designed to keep organic waste away from rats and odors before being placed in curbside bins, come at an additional cost. “Living in the city is hard enough, it costs just to breathe, and now we need to buy another garbage can,” he says. A well-sealed bin is particularly important in the summer, when accumulated organic waste, according to Elisabeth Tolaba —who has tried separating her food scraps during these hotter months— can become “pretty smelly,” especially in smaller apartments.

Adding to the costs, Queens residents who didn’t order brown bins from DSNY during their designated periods in 2022 can no longer get one for free. The same applies to Brooklynites, who joined the program a year later. Manhattan, Bronx, and Staten Island residents were eligible to request a free curbside compost bin from the Department of Sanitation until October 24. Now, New Yorkers across all five boroughs must either purchase the official DSNY brown bin for $43.47 or use a generic bin with a secure lid to keep rats away and request a free official decal from DSNY to label it.

This mandate came as a great surprise to Lala, who, despite having a separate bin management system on every floor of his 14-story Manhattan building, notes that his building has yet to provide bins for organics or inform tenants about the new requirement. 

Vincent Gragnani, a press secretary for the Department of Sanitation, says residential buildings with nine or fewer units —whose residents typically manage their own trash— received door-to-door notifications about the new mandate in the months surrounding the launch of the program. Moreover, he highlights the interviews conducted by former DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch with major networks to inform residents about the mandate. 

Additionally, DSNY still offers virtual information sessions in English, Spanish, and Chinese to help residents learn more about the curbside composting program.

Screen capture of DSNY virtual information session.

“It’s a hot mess!” Erickson Gil, building cleaner and maintenance professional who manages properties in West Harlem, says about the new organic collection mandate. 

“You give residents instructions, you tell ‘em, but they just don’t do it. They throw whatever in there,” says Gil, who compares his incessant reminders to residents as “babysitting.” “You gotta have people that are willing to be very disciplined in the community to make that work.”

Erickson Gil taking out the trash in a West Harlem building. Photo by E. Zepeda

New Yorkers across the five boroughs have until April 2025 before they start getting fined for mixing their organics with other trash —just as they are now for not separating recyclables. Buildings with nine or more units will be fined $100 for the first offense, with an additional $100 for each subsequent violation. For buildings with one to eight units, the fine is reduced to $25 for the first offense, with the same amount added for each following infraction. The fine will be imposed on the property owner.

For full compliance, organics —such as food scraps, food-soiled paper, meat, bones, dairy, prepared foods, greasy uncoated paper plates, pizza boxes, and products labeled as compostable— can be placed inside a paper, compostable, or clear plastic bag. The bag must then be placed inside a compost bin, which can also be lined with a bag of the same characteristics. Yard waste does not need to be in a bin and can be left at the curb in a paper, compostable, or clear plastic bag.

Historically, most of New York City’s food waste ended up in landfills, where it released methane —a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Today, that waste is either composted into soil fertilizer or processed into biogas, helping to reduce methane emissions. These efforts are led primarily by the Staten Island Compost Facility and the Newtown Creek Treatment Facility in Brooklyn.

Newtown Creek Treatment Facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, operated by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Photo by E. Zepeda

New York City is not the first to implement widespread composting mandates for residents. San Francisco led the way in 2009 and expanded the program statewide in California by 2022. A few years earlier, in 2020, Vermont did the same. Abroad, South Korea has been a leader, banning the landfilling of food waste across the country in 2005 and picking up organic waste daily. Most recently, France introduced a similar nationwide composting mandate, which took effect on January 1, 2024.

Drawing on these international examples, Erickson Gil proposes a pick-up schedule similar to the South Korean model, arguing that one day a week isn’t enough to keep up with the amount of organic waste produced by New Yorkers. “Let’s say you have a 17-18 family building and you’re only allowed to bring those out one day out of the week on recycling day. Those things get full in literally two days, ‘cause they small. If they could go out every time the black [bins] go out, which is every other day, it’ll be better.” 

Until that happens, New Yorkers can also use the orange “Smart Composting Bins” scattered across the city to drop-off their organic waste. These bins can only be unlocked using the NYC Compost App and are available 24/7. Introduced in 2021 and expanded over the years, they could help alleviate the strain on fast-filling curbside brown bins, particularly in neighborhoods like Jackson Heights and Corona, where multiple families often share a single unit. 

However, a closer look at the drop-off site map reveals a significant shortage of these bins in Queens, with a higher concentration in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. When questioned about the reasoning behind their placement, Gragnani, the DSNY press secretary,. explained that, “among many factors,” they focused on creating “a route that can be efficiently serviced six days a week.”

Locations of “Smart Composting Bins” drop-off sites in NYC (in orange). Image from DSNY’s website.

“I wish those orange bins were on the main streets of our communities, like in Corona Plaza, and, more importantly, that our communities were better informed about the importance of composting,” Linares says, as she picks weeds from the community garden in Queens. 

Paiero agrees. 

“The city isn’t putting enough effort to make this known to our neighbors. They tell you to compost, but they don’t explain how. I would like to see more announcements on the radio, television, and at community centers.”

With two months having passed since the citywide mandate was introduced, and more outreach campaigns still to come, it’s too early to assess its impact, such as whether trash weight has decreased or rat populations have dropped. However, Jennifer McDonnell, Assistant Commissioner of Solid Waste Management at the Department of Sanitation, is certain of one thing: “It’s hard to convince New Yorkers to do anything.”