Hello New Yorkers – We need your voice. Sign our petition. Urge the Mayor to halt the elimination of community compost programs!

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Our Letter

Dear Mayor Adams and Commissioner Tisch,

I am a concerned citizen who wants to live in a sustainable New York City and I understand that community composting has been cut.

The New York City Compost Project and GrowNYC serve millions of New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs, providing food scrap collections, organics processing, composting outreach and community education. I petition you today to save these programs in light of announced budget cuts.

Community composting organizations, including GrowNYC, Big Reuse, LES Ecology Center, Earth Matter NY, New York Botanical Garden, Queens Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden collectively:

• Divert more than 8.3 million pounds of organic waste from landfills each year.

• Produce and distribute hundreds of thousands of pounds of compost to over 325 community groups, parks, 85 street tree care events, and thousands of individuals each year. 

• Engage over 1,000 yearly participants in Master Composter activities through food, farming, and composting opportunities across the city.

• Provide compost outreach and education to over 600,000 New Yorkers annually, making them aware of food waste's contributions to the climate crisis while providing the opportunity to address this critical issue.

• Operate 6 community composting sites - providing the most sustainable and equitable form of organics waste management.

Cutting community composting and outreach programs will result in the elimination of these invaluable services and the loss of over 115 green jobs. 

Community composting programs transform New Yorkers' waste into valuable resources, providing essential soil for our parks, gardens, and playgrounds. These programs serve as a crucial tool in combating climate change. Furthermore, given the anticipated delays in the expansion of the Curbside Composting program, the success of such an initiative in New York City hinges on a robust outreach and community composting network to educate and engage residents.

I urge the Mayor and City Council to halt these massive cuts and to guarantee full funding to these programs for the future. These cost-effective programs contribute to a more liveable city with fewer rats, cleaner streets, and healthier soils, while cutting waste destined for landfills or incinerators.