The Future of Composting in NYC

A Midterm Report on our Progress

Ariel Yardeni, Gen Hua Tan, Rishi Ajmera, Edward Pinkasik, Eleni Efstathiadis

The Future of Composting in NYC

http://enviroworld.ca/residents-info/backyard-composting

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Shaping the Future of NYC, Spring 2014Professor MacBride

03/24/14

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Table of Contents

Overview.......................................................................................................................... iii

Field Reports................................................................................................................... iv

Updates on Initial Plan.....................................................................................................v

Concepts Discussed in the Video....................................................................................vi

Responsibilities...............................................................................................................vii

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The Future of Composting in NYCA Midterm Report on our Progress

Overview:

Our group chose to concentrate on the topic of composting in New York City and the environmental benefits it brings as a source of getting rid of waste in a sustainable way, as well as acting as a source of natural fertilizer. We will be focusing mainly on how to improve public image of food composting and get more people partaking in the activity. Our video will overview the perceived barriers to composting that exist in New York society, and also what incentivizes civilians to partake in the practice. We want to analyze the existing situation to figure out the most effective way to get more people composting in the future.

Our group plans to interview people in the composting industry and other related environmental fields to learn about the barriers they face in promoting composting, as well as their opinions on how to most effectively increase the amount of people that compost. The video will also incorporate information from the articles we read in class that pertain to composting.

So far, our progress has included the following:

We conducted interviews with Jennifer Blackwell, of New York City Composting Project of Brooklyn

Barriers Incentiv

es

We gathered footage at the local green markets of civilians coming to compost waste, and we will be doing follow-up interviews with them

We scheduled an interview with architects at Helpern Architects to gain a better understanding of the physical barriers to composting in New York City based on architecture and living space, and how composting facilities are being incorporated into residential apartment buildings

We scheduled an interview with Jodie Colón of New York City Composting Project of Bronx

We have gathered articles that support the idea of making composting widespread in New York. This information will help us evaluate what public opinion of composting is like and how we can initiate change. Finally, we have decided to participate in a composting event ourselves to get a feel for what the experience is like. We hope that this video will provide an overview of the current barriers composting organizations face in getting more people to compost, and how we can initiate change and encourage more people to take part in this environmentally sustainable practice.

Field Reports:

Our group has taken the initiative to film civilians dropping off food scraps for composting at the Union Square Green Market. We photographed the composting facility, as well as interviewed those who took advantage of it. We interviewed two architects named Martin and Paul who were dropping off materials to compost. We found out why they composting. We are doing a follow up interview with them on how composting programs are being integrated into new residential buildings. This interview is scheduled for April 22nd.

We interviewed Jennifer Blackwell, Project Manager of NYC Compost Project of Brooklyn. This interview was conducted over the phone, because Ms. Blackwell’s schedule did not permit an interview in person. We learned a lot about the food composting programs and resources that the Botanical Gardens offers through their Compost Project. We gauged a better sense on obstacles in composting, and how to overcome them.

We sent Professor MacBride an emailed interview request to forward to OROE Grow NYC. We await their response.

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An interview with Jodie Colon, the project manager of NYC Compost Project of the Bronx was scheduled for April 14th, but due to personal reasons she had to cancel with us, and reschedule for April 21st.

We emailed Lower East Side Ecology Center after being recommended by the Union Square Green Market composting table. We are awaiting their response.

An interview with Professor McBride will take place after Spring Break.

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Completed

NYC Composting

Project of Brooklyn

Visit to Local Greenmarket

Scheduled

Interview with Helpern

Architects

NYC Composting

Project of the Bronx

Pending

Interview with Professor Macbride

Lower East Side Ecology

Center

Interview people on general

composting knowledge

Updates on Initial Plan:

While working on this project we have changed our initial plan. As a group we decided that we should solely focus on composting and not do a dual concentration that includes the health benefits organic food. By additionally including organic food, our project will not be focused. We want to take the topic of composting and really explore it, without being sidetracked with topics that are not directly related.

 We decided we want to broaden our horizons and not just interview compost

experts. We are interviewing common people, and asking them their feelings on living near a composting plant or practicing composting. We want to see if the public has strong opinions about composting, and how extensive their knowledge about composting is. We also want to see if there are stigmas associated with compost plants being brought into a person’s community, such as the extent of the odor that will be given off.

To gain deeper insight into this project, we are going to take a group field trip to the Brooklyn Compost Garden in April. A specific date will be set once the Brooklyn Compost Garden posts a schedule for open times in April.

We are not acting according to our original timeline because of the change in project focus. Despite this setback, now we are working proactively to film and interview, as evident by the progress we have made so far and mentioned in the Field Reports. We must demonstrate flexibility because the people we are interviewing are often very busy, but we are working to complete all interviews and get footage as soon as possible.

Concepts Discussed in the Video:

As we have discussed in class, society is like an organism; different functions within the system are interrelated. Ignoring the problem of inefficient waste sorting and disposal ultimately hurts us as a whole. We must then think about how to address such an overarching problem that demands the

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participation and cooperation of practically everyone. Should we enact new laws that require people and/or businesses to compost their food discards? Invent a new technology that helps to efficiently separate, sort, and recycle waste?  Our project focuses on be belief that, in order to enact change in the world of waste-disposal, and specifically the act of composting food, we need the general population on our side. Going back to the organism simile, the general population is the connective tissue that holds all of the other stakeholders, the activist groups, the big businesses, the governments, the other organizations together, and allows them to interact and keep society functioning. So in order to enact any big change in the amount of food that we compost versus send to landfills, the first step is improving public image and increasing public knowledge about food composting, and understanding the barriers people face against food composting and the best incentives to get more people involved in the practice.

When speaking of the barriers and incentives to get more people involved in food composting, it is important to establish another concept that we briefly discussed in class: people's desires change with the time period, as well as what is new and seems the most appealing. For example, when we discussed Italian Futurism, many futurists wanted everything to do with what isn't natural: unnatural products, artificial foods, and anything someone could imagine up that was not in line with nature. On the other hand, many people today are concerned with how our food choices contain so few organic, all-natural options, and how many of the products we use in daily life are unsustainable and affecting the natural world around us. In order to improve public image of composting, organizations and activists need to understand fully the context of the place and time they are working in, and how this setting may both encourage and discourage people from composting in different ways.

Currently, the New York City government runs a two decade old program called NYC Composting Project in order to promote and encourage residential composting in all five boroughs. The Union Square Greenmarket is another organization that endorses a culture of food composting and environmental awareness. Community efforts strive to start a chain reaction- if people see their neighbors and friends composting, they may be more willing and proactive about doing the same. While these organizations do a great job at encouraging many people to begin composting their food items, the food-composting movement may need to find a way to push many more people onwards to more greener practices. 

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In Anna Lusher’s article, “What is the Accounting Profession’s Role in Accountability of Economic, Social, and Environmental Issues?” green accounting aims to increase business accountability by including externality costs (giving a price or obligation to business activities that negatively impact the economy, society and especially environment) and establish definite values to those externalities in the financial report. When published to the public, this information will change businesses’ attitudes and practices, ultimately pushing business, especially restaurants, to invest in composting and recycling efforts. In essence, those efforts will serve as incentives for the public to conform and join the cause. This same logic can be applied to food-composting initiatives. Even if people are not literally "charged" or "punished" for their lack of adherence to green practices like food composting, it is really important to have people understand the "price" of not composting (the negative impact it has on the environment). Understanding the "price", or toll on the environment that failing to compost food has, may be the incentive that many people need to begin composting their food waste.

In our video a main theme is going to be that food scraps need to be thought of as resources, not waste. According the “FoodWorks: A Vision to Improve NYC’s Food Systems” approximately one fifth of waste is organic matter from food scraps. This means this 20 percent of waste can be recycled and put back into the environment, instead of contributing to landfills. As much as 27 percent of food is discarded before consumption. The leftovers on people’s plates in restaurants definitely can’t be resold, but that doesn’t mean they should go straight into the garbage. According to the article, restaurants also produce kitchen grease that can be transformed into biofuel rather than being discarded.

As we have discussed in class, oftentimes there are obstacles or “inconveniences” that turn people off from doing something, including food composting in restaurants. So how do we overcome this? Can we give restaurants incentives or can we ease the process of food composting on their behalf? We believe that in order to counter the theme of perceived barriers, there should be programs that work directly with restaurants to collect the food scraps and grease. By having organizations come to the restaurants themselves, it eliminates the burden of “inconvenience” for the restaurants. The owners and employees don’t have to worry about physically driving the food scraps to composting sites themselves, and worrying that they must do this in a timely

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fashion before the food starts to smell. Having local green volunteering programs branch out and build a department for this kind of work definitely holds promise for the future of food composting.

      In Chapter 5 of Samantha MacBride’s book Recycling Reconsidered: The Present Failure and Future Promise of Environmental Action in the United States, the topic of “Extended producer responsibility framework legislation” is discussed extensively. Extended producer responsibility essentially calls for producers to be responsible for their produced goods by demanding a payment for production/distribution of products (in MacBride’s book, various plastics) rather than a direct ban of the product(s). The strong concern on regulating producers and how it is their duty to reduce environmental damages is valid since a large portion of the waste problem lies with the corporations; however, the public should be aware that they are also responsible to alleviate this problem, not just the corporations. Hence, in addition to extended producer responsibility, there should be an implied if not explicit extended consumer responsibility to recycle—particular to our concern, food (anything organic). The best way that ordinary people can contribute is of course simply by sorting out their trash to organic and inorganic items. The message that we want to get across to people to perform is not just that it’s easy, but that it is a personal responsibility. This can take many forms, such as enactment of laws to tax those who doesn’t compost and/or give tax breaks to those who compost. Instead of taxes, another possibility could be to reward those who composts with great discount coupons at local restaurants or something.

Responsibilities:

The responsibilities for work on the current project do not differ much from those outlined on our initial proposal, however, we will use this section to elaborate on the progress being made by each individual group member to complete the video tasks. We have been actively communicating with one another to make sure everything is completed in a timely manner and that the project will be of the highest quality possible.

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Eleni and Ariel have written the interview questions and decided who they want to interview. They are responsible for scheduling and conducting the interviews.

Edward is in charge of editing the film. Since all of our video footage has not been completed, he cannot start editing until later on. Therefore, he is researching relevant articles and making creative connections with futuristic concepts.

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Eleni Ariel

E d w a rd

Rishi and Gen are in charge of finding scholarly articles related to food composting. This section of our project needed major improvement, because we needed to find articles that are more relevant to food composting specifically, and not other types of composting. Rishi is also in charge of filming the interviews.

The group dynamics are playing out extremely well, because we are each contributing to the sections we assigned ourselves in the beginning, as well as all contributing to help the growth of the project overall. We have weekly group meetings in the library to make sure that we are on track with our project.

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Rishi Gen

Ariel Yardeni

[Class, Semester][Teacher Name]

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