Viewing NYC Articles Categorized Under Compost

[VIDEO] What Happens to NYC's Compost?

2025-08-20T12:00:00-04:00

Paul Campbell has been a sanitation truck driver for 18 years. His most recent route has him lugging 300-pound bins filled with watermelon rinds, coconut shells and other compost onto a truck in the dead of the night. He sees a part of New York that few ever get the chance to glimpse: its vast food waste.

While the city sleeps, Mr. Campbell drives around picking up compost from restaurants and markets. As the sun rises, he deposits his haul at a warehouse, to be eventually turned into electricity, generated from biogas, for New York and New Jersey.

“On the Job With Priya Krishna” is a series about labor and the people who shape what we eat and how we eat, and whose jobs often go unseen.

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[WATCH] What Happens to NYC's Compost?

2024-11-04T12:00:00-05:00

Paul Campbell has been a sanitation truck driver for 18 years. His most recent route has him lugging 300-pound bins filled with watermelon rinds, coconut shells and other compost onto a truck in the dead of the night. He sees a part of New York that few ever get the chance to glimpse: its vast food waste.

While the city sleeps, Mr. Campbell drives around picking up compost from restaurants and markets. As the sun rises, he deposits his haul at a warehouse, to be eventually turned into electricity, generated from biogas, for New York and New Jersey.

“On the Job With Priya Krishna” is a series about labor and the people who shape what we eat and how we eat, and whose jobs often go unseen.

The post [WATCH] What Happens to NYC's Compost? appeared first on Viewing NYC

[VIDEO] NYC Recycles Explains How You Can Help Compost Through Food Scrap Drop-Offs

2019-05-22T11:00:00-04:00

NYC Recycles has a new informational video out explaining how food scrap drop-offs work in the City.

Food scraps can be turned into useful compost that helps make NYC green. You can take food waste for composting to drop-off sites located throughout the five boroughs.

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Prospect Park's New $2M Toilets Collect Human Waste For Composting

2017-06-20T11:30:00-04:00

Prospect Park recently spent $2.34 million renovating the bathrooms inside the Old Wellhouse and included four special toilets which collect human poop for future composting. As the law currently exists, using human excrement in compost is illegal, but the Prospect Park Alliance see that changing in the near future.

“Right now, New York State doesn’t allow for the compost to be used,” said Prospect Park Alliance spokeswoman Deborah Kirschner. No problem though, says the Alliance, because the poop, like fine wine, needs to be aged for 10 years — enough time for the law to be changed. “We’re hoping by then we’ll be able to use it,”

“It’s benign and perfectly fine,” the bathroom’s architect, Alden Maddry, insisted. “It just makes people squeamish.”

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360° Video Shows How New York City Deals With Compostable Food Scraps and Other Materials

2017-06-03T14:30:00-04:00

Composting in a City with few gardens can be difficult, but we still generate a lot of it in New York City. In this immersive 360° video from the New York Times, see exactly how the City deals with compost.

In this 360° video, follow the journey of food scraps and yard waste from Brooklyn, where it's collected by a sanitation truck, to Staten Island, where the organic waste becomes what gardeners call “black gold.”

If you can't move the view around, you need to use the Google Chrome browser on desktop, or the YouTube App for iOS or Android to move around inside the video.

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The Periodic Table of NYC Trash

2016-07-06T09:38:01-04:00

One of New York City's more unique experiences is the variety the fragrant odors found on the streets. From cigar butts, soy sauce packets, feces and rotting food, it can be difficult to identify exactly what is hitting your nostrils.

To help you figure it out, writer Molly Young and graphic designer Teddy Blanks created the Periodic Table of NYC Trash, a nifty arrangement of 118 New York City "elements."

Just like the real periodic table, this poster features 118 naturally-occuring elements. The elements are organized by category: Apparel, Beverage, Food, Hygiene, Household, Lifestyle, Municipal, Packing, and Vices.

Check out more about the project at its Kickstarter. The project has already surpassed its goal but if you pledge $40, you get a 23" x 33" print of the Periodic Table of NYC trash for your home.

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Meet Vandra Thorburn, the Compost Queen of New York City

2016-01-21T12:30:06-05:00

Vokashi is a new service from passionate environmentalist and founder Vandra Thorburn which helps New York City business deal with the tons of compostable food waste produced every day.

In this video from Zagat, learn all about the woman behind the organization and about composting in New York City.

One-third of all food that is produced is expected to be wasted or lost, but tactics like composting are helping to limit a future filled with food failures. Zagat visited the front lines of the war on waste with one composting company - Vokashi - and its founder Vandra Thorburn, to find out why recycling food is catching on across the country.

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Cleverly Designed Compost Bins Disguised as Newspaper Boxes Hit the Streets

2015-11-25T11:22:38-05:00

The New York Compost project is a cleverly designed compost bin made to look like a newspaper box and blend in amongst the other on the City streets.

Those ubiquitous newspaper boxes that have lain dormant with the rise of the web have found new life – literally – thanks to the New York Compost Box Project. The brainchild of former tabloid newspaper designer Debbie Ullman, the project places boxes in the city as repositories for New Yorkers to get rid of their food scraps whenever it’s convenient for them.

The branding on the boxes is almost a carbon copy of the New York Post, but somehow looks better on the compost project bins than the tabloid newspaper.

Head over to the project page to learn more.

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NYC Recycles Video Explains How You Can Help Compost Through Food Scrap Drop-Offs

2015-10-13T14:54:52-04:00

NYC Recycles has a new informational video out explaining how food scrap drop-offs work in the City.

Food scraps can be turned into useful compost that helps make NYC green. You can take food waste for composting to drop-off sites located throughout the five boroughs.

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Streetside Organic Waste Collection Begins This Fall in Parts of Brooklyn

2015-09-08T13:11:25-04:00

Brooklyn neighborhoods Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gowanus, and Red Hook will be getting a present from the Department of Sanitation this fall when they start collecting compost and other organic waste from a curbside bin.

Being 'green' will be a lot easier starting this fall, when the NYC Department of Sanitation is expanding its organic collection into our neighborhood. This means that we will all soon have a brown collection bin in front of our house, which will be emptied by Sanitation twice a week.

See the City's page on recycling and garbage for more info.

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