Drop off point
June 3, 2013 By Christian Murray
Hunters Point residents were able to drop off their food scraps next to the number 7 train station this morning as a new composting program took effect.
BIG!Compost, a program of the Astoria-based Build It Green!NYC, set up a big tent next to the Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue 7 train station this morning where residents were able to drop off their scraps.
The drop-off site accepted waste like fruit and vegetable scraps, corn cobs, egg shells, newspapers and a number of other items for composting. However, the program doesn’t accept meat, dairy or animal waste.
The program will now operate on Monday mornings during the rush-hour period.
“Our goal is to make composting as easy as possible for residents,” said Gina Baldwin, a spokeswoman for BIG!Compost, in a statement.
“By setting up food scrap drop-offs in locations where residents are walking past every day on the way to work, we hope to engage New Yorkers who may not be aware of how easy and fun it is to divert food waste from the landfill.”
BIG!Compost operates 15 drop-off sites at locations in Queens and Brooklyn in an effort to cut down on the estimated 650,000 tons of food New Yorkers throw away each year.
The scraps collected by the group are processed for use by the city in public parks and gardens. They are also used for compost by Brooklyn Grange, the rooftop farm on Northern Boulevard in Long Island City.
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2 Comments
Great minds think alike! We’re glad we’re not the only ones who are excited to have composting in LIC.
Sure, there are some downfalls, but there’s great upsides to what this can do for our community here.
We also made sure to mention LIC Post in our recent write-up about Big!Compost also! http://bit.ly/18tubWW
Cheers!
The stuff goes through a phase in which it stinks to high heaven. And that’s the truth. We’ve had two so-called master composters in our community garden. Both said it would’t stink. Both were flat out wrong. There are also flies, tons of equipment and the discarded containers people bring their compost in.
Composting is good. The whole system of handling massive amounts of food waste needs to be worked out, because right now it isn’t good.