composting

Crews picked up 5.7 million pounds of organic waste in Queens during the first six weeks of the program from Oct. 3 to Nov. 12.

This time they think it might really work

Mayor Eric Adams has suspended the expansion of residential composting programs.

The mayor said he would expand collection of food and yard scraps when he was running. Now he's cutting the city's collection program.

The pilot program has sparked confusion from some New Yorkers and earned mixed reviews from sustainability experts.

Buildings must opt-in to the program, and anyone who didn’t have curbside pickup before the pandemic still won’t.

By 2017, the program was serving 300,000 households, 722 schools, agencies and institutions, and 80 drop-off points. In 2019, the city collected 50,000 tons of compostables from curbside service alone. What happened?

"The whole point here is to get the city better prepared, better organized around organic recycling and make sure that every community has access to it."

'It's been a low priority for City Hall... You can't under-fund and under-nourish the organics program and call your city a believer in sustainability. It just doesn't make sense.'

Only about 3 percent of the organics waste produced by residents in the program is getting recycled.