It has been over two months since the New York City Parks Department evicted Big Reuse from the group’s Queens composting center, and the nonprofit is no closer to understanding why. Meanwhile, the city is preparing to implement curbside composting city-wide, raising worries about what the future of composting in New York looks like.
Big Reuse had been in the same lot under the Queensboro Bridge since 2016. Back then, the space — which is owned by the Parks Department — was filled with refuse. The group spent three years establishing a composting facility, which, at its peak, could create 700 cubic yards of compost annually — the equivalent of 16 shipping containers that are 20 feet long — according to Big Reuse Executive Director Justin Green.
Big Reuse’s composting site under the Queensboro Bridge in 2018. The future location of the Queensbridge ‘Baby’ Park is directly behind it. (Photo courtesy of Big Reuse).
“We created what we had felt was a really optimal system,” Green said. Big Reuse collected residential food waste from 62 drop-off sites. And the Parks Department “was bringing us their leaves and wood chips. We were on Parks land, composting and giving it right back to Parks projects.”
Big Reuse was surprised then, when last February, the Parks Department said it would not renew the group’s licensing agreement, and they would have to vacate the property by June 30. The Parks Department said it required the lot to store building materials needed to construct the 1/3-acre Queensbridge “Baby” Park next door.
For Eric Goldstein, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nonrenewal hurts the effort to mainstream composting just as the city is introducing mandatory food-waste collection across all five boroughs.
“The community composters are the city’s experts in explaining to New Yorkers what compost is, how to participate in the program, and why it makes sense to do so,” he said. “They are the vanguard for successful composting.”
Composters collect food waste and other organic materials, mix them and let them decompose in an oxygen-rich environment. The result is compost, which is nutritious for plants, aids carbon storage and benefits soil health. Composting food diverts it from landfills, where it can release methane, a greenhouse gas.
Since 1993, the Department of Sanitation has funded composting efforts run by nonprofits such as Big Reuse.
Fighting eviction
After being told last February that its license wouldn’t be renewed, Big Reuse said it proposed that Parks store its equipment in a “historically underutilized” nearby parking lot. The group worked with an architect to design an alternative storage arrangement and sent the proposal to the Parks Department.
Parks officials were unmoved. When asked why, Parks Press Officer Judd Faulkner stated that the nonprofit and the department had a “mutually agreed upon date of June 30, 2024, at which time Big Reuse vacated and Parks moved forward with its scheduled capital project to improve the park.”
Big Reuse organized its supporters to urge Mayor Eric Adams and Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue to reverse course. More than 3,000 people, as well as 115 community organizations, 20 City Council members, two local community boards, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, and City Comptroller Brad Lander sent statements of support.
It didn’t matter.
In a June 14 email to Big Reuse, Claudia Cereceda — chief of staff to Parks Commissioner Donoghue — wrote that the department would give the organization until July 15 to “transition off the site.” After that date, Cereceda wrote, the department would “need to change the locks and move our equipment in to be ready” to start the park reconstruction.
However, on Sept. 6, the site of the Queensbridge “Baby” Park still had several shipping containers in addition to assorted equipment. Six days later, the containers had been removed, and at least two appeared to have been moved into the former Big Reuse site. Construction is expected to begin on the baby park after the procurement stage finishes in October. A specific construction timeline has yet to be established.
The empty former Big Reuse site on September 6, 2024. (Credit: Roman Broszkowski)
Curbside composting
The Parks Department’s decision mirrored the mayor’s office’s split approach toward composters, say environmental groups. The city is promising to roll out curbside compostables collection in a few weeks.
“The city administration — in so many words — has thanked us for our tireless work, but they said we’re rolling out this program [curbside organic collection], and we’ve got this,” said Christine Datz-Romero, co-founder and executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which composts residential food scraps in a space at the John V. Lindsay East River Park. “They don’t really see the value of community composting.”
For its part, the Department of Sanitation believes it can lead a successful city-wide program.
“New York City is in the midst of rolling out the nation’s largest and easiest curbside composting. As of next month, we will be picking up compostable material from every single resident across the five boroughs,” Sanitation Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani said by email. “We have the capacity to process all this material.”
Others disagree.
“DSNY has proven itself in the recent past and is reproving itself in the current era as incapable of running a program for curbside collection of organics that can stand up over time,” said Samantha MacBride, a Baruch College professor and the Sanitation Department’s former director of Research and Operations.
According to MacBride, in 2023, DSNY’s curbside program collected just 4.3% of the organic waste created in the Queens districts where it operated.
“People are not participating. Why are people not participating? That’s not an easy question to answer,” MacBride said. “The fact is, there has not been the public conversation about what they [DSNY] need to do to raise the capture rates.”
Sanitation officials did not respond to an email asking about MacBride’s numbers.
Legacy
Some people already miss Big Reuse.
The Randall’s Island Park Alliance’s (RIPA) Urban Farm used to receive free compost from the lot. If its farmers ran low, they would text Big Reuse and set up a delivery. “We produce some of our own compost, but we don’t produce nearly enough to run our program,” said Ciara Sidell, RIPA urban farm manager. “We have over 100 raised [garden] beds. So that’s a lot of compost that’s needed.” Now, Sidell must find money for compost in the program’s budget for the first time.
For others, the most noticeable effect of Big Reuse’s closure is the lack of smell.
Martha Henderson lives near the site and walks her dog on the greenway that runs parallel to the lots. “It smelled like s — t,” Henderson said. “Permanently.”
Still, Henderson supports composting and is excited about the city’s rollout of curbside collection. “The entire world should be composting,” she said.
What role community compost will play after the city expands curbside composting remains unclear.
In an emailed statement, Joshua Goodman — a deputy commissioner at the Department of Sanitation — said that “community composting programs are continuing in tandem with the curbside program,” but did not provide details.
Community composters have felt that lack of clarity. The city’s budget cuts last year forced dozens of layoffs. Some were reversed once funding was reallocated by the City Council this summer, but the intervening months were difficult.
“It was just very frustrating, just very sad,” said Elena Tinschert, who was laid off from her composting role at Big Reuse and later rehired in a different role at the organization. “A lot of my friends got laid off… It was a tough time.”
The layoffs made her question whether to continue in the field. “I was like, do I need more financial security? Of course, I would love that,” she said, adding, “This has been my life’s work.”
About the author(s)
Roman Broszkowski is a Stabile investigative student at Columbia Journalism School.