Composting may now become a new way of recycling for New Yorkers, that is if Mayor Bloomberg has his way.
From USA Today:
Legions of apartment dwellers will soon be asked — and may eventually be forced — to start collecting food scraps for composting, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest bid to make the Big Apple greener.
After launching a test program recently in 3,500 Staten Island homes and some Manhattan apartment buildings, city officials said Monday they planned to expand it to 100,000 houses and high-rise apartments in all five boroughs this fall. The initiative would be voluntary for now, but officials aim to make it mandatory citywide in a few years.
New York wouldn’t be the first to try it: San Francisco and Seattle already require compost collection for at least some residents, and more than 100 communities nationwide offer or mandate composting, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. But ushering composting into America’s biggest city stands to amplify a cause environmentalists view as the next wave in recycling.
Read more at USA Today.
“The average New York City household throws out over two pounds of food waste per day, amounting to over 3,000 tons of organic matter that must be trucked off to distant landfills. In a landfill, organic matter breaks down in the absence of oxygen, creating methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, which together with transportation impacts contribute to climate change,” according to the LES Ecology Center.
I’ve touted composting as an easy way to recycle your waste. In New York, there are several drop off stations for your compost.
To help you adapt quickly, here is my review of a great apartment sized composting bin from Full Circle.
What you can compost:
Vegetables
Coffee grounds and filters
Tea and tea bags
Crushed eggshells (but not eggs)
Nutshells
Houseplants
Leaves
Cardboard rolls, cereal
Boxes, brown paper bags
Clean paper
Paper towels
Shredded newspaper
Fireplace ashes
Wood chips, sawdust,
Toothpicks, burnt matches
Cotton and wool rags
Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
Grass clippings, yard trimmings
Hair and fur
Hay and straw
What you CAN’T compost:
meat
dairy
oily foods
dog or cat feces, kitty litter
coal or charcoal
coconut
diseased and/or insect infested houseplants or soil
Are you composting already? If not, what has stopped you from doing so?
#NYC #Composting #GreenLiving
