April 14, 2025 • 13 mins
Since April 1, the New York City Department of Sanitation has begun enforcing strict rules on separating food waste and yard waste from trash—issuing fines of up to $300 to property owners who don’t comply with the law. Our guest is Samantha Maldonado, a senior reporter for THE CITY, with an overview of composting guidelines for landlords and residents from her article How to Compost in NYC: A Guide. Samantha Maldonado is a senior reporter for THE CITY, where she covers climate, resiliency, housing and development at thecity.nyc.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening. To get connected as we approach Earth Day,
A conversation about recycling, also timed with new enforcement by
the New York City Department of Sanitation. Since April first,
DSNY has begun enforcing strict rules on separating food waste
and yard waste from trash, issuing fines of up to
(00:33):
three hundred dollars to property owners who don't comply with
the law. No one wants the fine. We want to comply,
but what are the rules. Our guest is Samantha Maldonado,
a senior reporter for the City who has done the
research for her article how to Compost an NYC A Guide.
Samantha Maldonado, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Samantha Maldonado covers climate, resiliency, housing and development for the City,
an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the people of New York.
You can find them at Thecity dot NYC. Her article
how to Compost in NYC A Guide was published on
March twenty seventh, so many clickable links. And actually this
is your third article as part of this recycling guide.
(01:14):
What other topics have you covered, Samantha.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I also covered recycling both plastic, metal, and glass, as
well as paper. We did a guide to say how
to do it and what happens to your material in
New York City.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think there's so many of us that are like
recycling nerds. But talking to the average New Yorker, I mean,
they like the idea of recycling, they're happy to do it,
but we haven't really been that good at it, at
least with food separation.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's true, and it is somewhat new to New York
City for sure. It rolled out city wide in October,
but the finds really start started just last week April first.
So the crackdown has begun, and it means that people
need to get better really really quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So the gist of this is we need to separate
food waste and yard trimmings from the trash. Why are
we doing that?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So we're doing that for a couple reasons. One of course,
is because we don't want rats. Rats eat trash that
has food in it, and when our bags sit out,
this is not good.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
It just gives them a feast. No one likes rats.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
The other reason is because organics in landfills creates methane,
which is a really potent greenhouse gas. It warms the
planet and causes climate change. The last reason is that
it can save us money.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
As a city.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It costs more to send our food, scraps and other
materials to landfill than it does to beneficially reuse them
to turn that into compost or biogas.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I definitely want to talk about the biogas in the compost,
but let's talk about the bins to begin with. What
goes in there, So obviously food, along with, according to
your article, all kinds of other compostable items that aren't
technically food, which is kind of interesting, quirks and what else.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, well, the thing that really shocked me was human
hair or pet hair. Apparently it's compostable in the New
York City system. You can do veggies, meat, dairy, You
can do processed food, pop, tart or candy, anything that's
moldy or rotten. You can also put in greasy pizza
boxes or even brown paper bags and paper plates. If
(03:09):
it says compostable or it's made of paper, then it's
basically okay to go in.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So pizza boxes and paper bags they don't go in
the paper recycling. They can go in the.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Food well, they can go in paper recycling, but not
if they're greasy or soiled. So for instance, if your
pizza box has a lot of cheese and grease on it,
throw it in the compost.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So a couple of nitty gritty questions which you do
address in the article pet waste. Can that go in there? No? No?
In short menstrual products, no, And what about cooking oil?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So not really things that are oily can go in there,
but you can't put say a whole container of cooking oil.
You can't dump that into your compost man, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And compostable dishware yes, great, So sanitation picks it up.
Where does it go?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So it can go to a few places.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
In general, it's always going to get beneficially reused, and
that could mean one of two things. It could mean composted,
which means it breaks down and turns into essentially a
soil amendment. It's a very nutrient rich they call it
black gold. You can use it to fertilize your soil
and other plants and that Normally it mostly happens in
Saaten Island, but can also be sent out to other
(04:17):
places outside the city to get broken down and composted.
The other place that can go is to become biogas,
which essentially replaces gas that is a fossil fuel, but
it gets digested and it gets mixed with sewage sludge
as well, and it becomes gas to power plants. Here
in New York City, there's a plant at Newtown Creek,
(04:40):
and so the biogas helps power that and it also
gets sent to homes to replace natural gas.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Our guest is Samantha Maldonado, senior reporter for This City.
We're talking about her article how to Compost an NYC
A guide It is in this City if you haven't
found it yet. It's an independent, nonprofit newsroom serving the
people of New York at Thecity dot NYC. This article
is published on March twenty seventh. It's got a million
clickable links since she also has a couple more articles
(05:07):
related specifically to recycling. You're listening to get connected on
one oh six point seven light FM. I'mina del Rio
and much of what you detail in this article Samantha,
and what your other articles are based on is on
questions that readers posed. What do people seem to be
the most curious or confused about?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So one of the questions that we got repeatedly was
about can I put all this into a plastic bag?
Why would it make sense that you could put a
plastic bag into the bins when that's obviously not an
organic material? Or must I use a compostable bag to
throw out my you know, food scraps and whatever else.
(05:46):
And New Yorkers are able to put plastic bags.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Into the bin.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You can line your bin with a clear plastic bag
or put in you know, uh, just kind of a
regular plastic bag with your your food scraps inside of
it and those get separated out. The way this works
is that the machines that we have that process the
food scraps are industrial and they're able to extract the
plastic bags and really decontaminate the material. This wasn't true
(06:12):
when we only had community composting. And if you're composting
in your backyard or bring it to a community garden,
you know, obviously that's not going to happen because they
don't have that kind of material and the machinery.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So you don't have to worry about the stickers on
your food or anything like that, like banana stickers or
anything either.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Right, you can take those off if you really want
to go above and beyond, but the machinery will take
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Great. Great. So many of us are in little apartments,
not a lot of space to keep your old food
until recycling day. It stayks, fruitflies, all those things. Suggestions
on how to store.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
It sure, so some of the tips I was given
is put it into a container that you already have,
just keep it on your counter, and the container should
have a lid, so for instance, an old yogurt container,
or you can buy your own if you want, buckets
that are for composts and they have a lid on top.
Freezing your compost is also a really good way to
just get it out of sight, not have fruit flies,
(07:05):
there's no smell, and then you can, you know, once
it fills up, just take it to the bin when
you have no room left. And someone else also gave
me the tip that you are keeping your compost out
on your counter, you can sprinkle coffee grounds over it
and that will kind of help limit this thing.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh good to know. Our guest is Samantha Maldonado, senior
reporter for this City. She covers climate, resiliency, housing and development.
The City is an independent, nonprofit newsroom serving the people
of New York. If you haven't found them yet, the
website is the city dot NYC. Her article how to
compost in New York City was the third in a
series published on March twenty seventh. With many clickable links.
(07:44):
You're listening to get connected on one six point seven
light FM. I'm Nina del Rio. The city also sells
compost bins. Can you talk about those?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Sure? So?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Homeowners and property owners need to provide compost bins for
residents and for themselves, and you can buy them from
bins NYC. They're lidded, they're brown. There's a couple of sizes,
or you can just use your own bin, as long
as it's under fifty five gallons and has a lid
on it, and you can label it so it says
composts and put your address on it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
There are also those plastic orange bins scattered around the city,
the smart bins. Those open with an app. If I
live someplace else and I work in the city, or
I'm a tourist or whatever, I'm having lunch, I have
food scraps. Do I have to be a resident to
use the app?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
No, anyone can download that and you can just pop
it open.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Those are provided by the New York City Department's Sanitation,
by the way, and they have an amazing set of
links on their website. Let's talk a little bit too
about buildings and the responsibilities of property owners. What are
they kind of in for with this. If you have
a building with more than four units, it's on you.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Correct, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So in your article you note that ahead of April first,
Department of Sanitation had already issued more than twenty thousand
warnings to property owners for mixing organic waste in the trash.
What do you know about how the buildings are being
checked and what's considered finable offenses?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
So the Department of Sanitation is looking for buildings to
make sure that they comply with this new rule, and
they're you know, they may be opening bags and looking
in the trash, but mostly they'll look out for other
clues as well, like are there bins available? Have they
seen property owners or the supers put out bins and
they can see if they're complying or not.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Are they kind of doing a wandering check or are
they based on people being reported or what.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
It's both.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
So there are inspectors that go out and also they
are now taking complaints.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
You can complain through.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Three one one if your building is not providing a
bin or if you have suspicions that another building is not,
And so they are going off of those complaints as well.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And what also sort of constitutes a finable offense? Like
say I've forgotten then I put my dog waste in
the you know, with everything.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Else, I think there's some forgiveness here.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, when I talk to the Sanitation department about this,
they weren't looking to sort of go through every single thing.
Or if you toss an apple core into the trash, it's.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Not like you'll probably get fined.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It's mostly to make sure that the building owners and
property owners are putting forth a good faith effort here.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And what does the Department of Sanitation offer for landlords
to kind of help them be compliant and help them
help their tenants be compliant.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah, there's lots of outreach sessions available. The Department Stantation
will do engagement in a building. There's also some other
nonprofit groups that offer that. There's lots of resources online
just educational resources as well as decals and posters things
like that that you can download, print out and then
put around the building that you own, or even just
(10:41):
stick to the bin to show your tenants what exactly
they need to do and how they should do it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You also had mentioned community gardens you could drop off
your fruit scraps at some community gardens and green markets.
Will that still be available?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And if you want to use the compost that the
city makes for your own garden, how do you get it?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, well, landscapers can buy the compost directly from the
Department of Sanitation. But the Sanitation department is also doing
giveaways and they have events that you can find on
their website and different burroughs at different times, especially in
the spring, and pick that up for free. And there's
also places one in Staten Island and one in Brooklyn
(11:22):
that anyone can go to and pick up compost.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And just to go back. What other topics have you
covered in this series regarding recycling in the Five Boroughs?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So this article is the third in a series it's
the third guide I have written about recycling and material
diversion from landfilled Essentially, the first two articles were about recycling,
how to do it and where it goes in New
York City, and this is the third, and it's about
composting in organics.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It's an interesting thing. Again, people I think want to participate,
but maybe they don't all know all the details. What
do you know about sort of the learning curve in
the city, about how people are getting on board and
taking this really seriously.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Well, there's a ways to go. We are definitely not
doing this perfectly.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Organics make up about a third of what is in
our trash, and so if we can take that and
actually divert it from landfills and make it into the
compost or making it to biogas, that would just make
it really huge impact.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
We're far from that right now.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But again, it's early in the program and we've had
decades worth of recycling and that took a while to
get people used to and we can still improve.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
But yeah, organics is sort of it's infancy.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Here you can find out more about the topic about
all kinds of recycling at home versus with food containers, etc.
Through the articles that Samantha has written for this city.
This one is how to compost in NYC, A guide.
It was published on March twenty seventh. Many clickable links
to this and her prior coverage for the city at
Thecity dot NYC. Samantha Maldonado, thank you for being on
(12:54):
to Get Connected.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening. To get connected as we approach Earth Day,
A conversation about recycling, also timed with new enforcement by
the New York City Department of Sanitation. Since April first,
DSNY has begun enforcing strict rules on separating food waste
and yard waste from trash, issuing fines of up to
(00:33):
three hundred dollars to property owners who don't comply with
the law. No one wants the fine. We want to comply,
but what are the rules. Our guest is Samantha Maldonado,
a senior reporter for the City who has done the
research for her article how to Compost an NYC A Guide.
Samantha Maldonado, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Samantha Maldonado covers climate, resiliency, housing and development for the City,
an independent nonprofit newsroom serving the people of New York.
You can find them at Thecity dot NYC. Her article
how to Compost in NYC A Guide was published on
March twenty seventh, so many clickable links. And actually this
is your third article as part of this recycling guide.
(01:14):
What other topics have you covered, Samantha.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I also covered recycling both plastic, metal, and glass, as
well as paper. We did a guide to say how
to do it and what happens to your material in
New York City.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think there's so many of us that are like
recycling nerds. But talking to the average New Yorker, I mean,
they like the idea of recycling, they're happy to do it,
but we haven't really been that good at it, at
least with food separation.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's true, and it is somewhat new to New York
City for sure. It rolled out city wide in October,
but the finds really start started just last week April first.
So the crackdown has begun, and it means that people
need to get better really really quickly.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So the gist of this is we need to separate
food waste and yard trimmings from the trash. Why are
we doing that?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
So we're doing that for a couple reasons. One of course,
is because we don't want rats. Rats eat trash that
has food in it, and when our bags sit out,
this is not good.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
It just gives them a feast. No one likes rats.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
The other reason is because organics in landfills creates methane,
which is a really potent greenhouse gas. It warms the
planet and causes climate change. The last reason is that
it can save us money.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
As a city.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
It costs more to send our food, scraps and other
materials to landfill than it does to beneficially reuse them
to turn that into compost or biogas.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I definitely want to talk about the biogas in the compost,
but let's talk about the bins to begin with. What
goes in there, So obviously food, along with, according to
your article, all kinds of other compostable items that aren't
technically food, which is kind of interesting, quirks and what else.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, well, the thing that really shocked me was human
hair or pet hair. Apparently it's compostable in the New
York City system. You can do veggies, meat, dairy, You
can do processed food, pop, tart or candy, anything that's
moldy or rotten. You can also put in greasy pizza
boxes or even brown paper bags and paper plates. If
(03:09):
it says compostable or it's made of paper, then it's
basically okay to go in.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So pizza boxes and paper bags they don't go in
the paper recycling. They can go in the.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Food well, they can go in paper recycling, but not
if they're greasy or soiled. So for instance, if your
pizza box has a lot of cheese and grease on it,
throw it in the compost.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So a couple of nitty gritty questions which you do
address in the article pet waste. Can that go in there? No? No?
In short menstrual products, no, And what about cooking oil?
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So not really things that are oily can go in there,
but you can't put say a whole container of cooking oil.
You can't dump that into your compost man, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And compostable dishware yes, great, So sanitation picks it up.
Where does it go?
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So it can go to a few places.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
In general, it's always going to get beneficially reused, and
that could mean one of two things. It could mean composted,
which means it breaks down and turns into essentially a
soil amendment. It's a very nutrient rich they call it
black gold. You can use it to fertilize your soil
and other plants and that Normally it mostly happens in
Saaten Island, but can also be sent out to other
(04:17):
places outside the city to get broken down and composted.
The other place that can go is to become biogas,
which essentially replaces gas that is a fossil fuel, but
it gets digested and it gets mixed with sewage sludge
as well, and it becomes gas to power plants. Here
in New York City, there's a plant at Newtown Creek,
(04:40):
and so the biogas helps power that and it also
gets sent to homes to replace natural gas.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Our guest is Samantha Maldonado, senior reporter for This City.
We're talking about her article how to Compost an NYC
A guide It is in this City if you haven't
found it yet. It's an independent, nonprofit newsroom serving the
people of New York at Thecity dot NYC. This article
is published on March twenty seventh. It's got a million
clickable links since she also has a couple more articles
(05:07):
related specifically to recycling. You're listening to get connected on
one oh six point seven light FM. I'mina del Rio
and much of what you detail in this article Samantha,
and what your other articles are based on is on
questions that readers posed. What do people seem to be
the most curious or confused about?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So one of the questions that we got repeatedly was
about can I put all this into a plastic bag?
Why would it make sense that you could put a
plastic bag into the bins when that's obviously not an
organic material? Or must I use a compostable bag to
throw out my you know, food scraps and whatever else.
(05:46):
And New Yorkers are able to put plastic bags.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Into the bin.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You can line your bin with a clear plastic bag
or put in you know, uh, just kind of a
regular plastic bag with your your food scraps inside of
it and those get separated out. The way this works
is that the machines that we have that process the
food scraps are industrial and they're able to extract the
plastic bags and really decontaminate the material. This wasn't true
(06:12):
when we only had community composting. And if you're composting
in your backyard or bring it to a community garden,
you know, obviously that's not going to happen because they
don't have that kind of material and the machinery.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So you don't have to worry about the stickers on
your food or anything like that, like banana stickers or
anything either.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Right, you can take those off if you really want
to go above and beyond, but the machinery will take
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Great. Great. So many of us are in little apartments,
not a lot of space to keep your old food
until recycling day. It stayks, fruitflies, all those things. Suggestions
on how to store.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
It sure, so some of the tips I was given
is put it into a container that you already have,
just keep it on your counter, and the container should
have a lid, so for instance, an old yogurt container,
or you can buy your own if you want, buckets
that are for composts and they have a lid on top.
Freezing your compost is also a really good way to
just get it out of sight, not have fruit flies,
(07:05):
there's no smell, and then you can, you know, once
it fills up, just take it to the bin when
you have no room left. And someone else also gave
me the tip that you are keeping your compost out
on your counter, you can sprinkle coffee grounds over it
and that will kind of help limit this thing.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Oh good to know. Our guest is Samantha Maldonado, senior
reporter for this City. She covers climate, resiliency, housing and development.
The City is an independent, nonprofit newsroom serving the people
of New York. If you haven't found them yet, the
website is the city dot NYC. Her article how to
compost in New York City was the third in a
series published on March twenty seventh. With many clickable links.
(07:44):
You're listening to get connected on one six point seven
light FM. I'm Nina del Rio. The city also sells
compost bins. Can you talk about those?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Sure? So?
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Homeowners and property owners need to provide compost bins for
residents and for themselves, and you can buy them from
bins NYC. They're lidded, they're brown. There's a couple of sizes,
or you can just use your own bin, as long
as it's under fifty five gallons and has a lid
on it, and you can label it so it says
composts and put your address on it.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
There are also those plastic orange bins scattered around the city,
the smart bins. Those open with an app. If I
live someplace else and I work in the city, or
I'm a tourist or whatever, I'm having lunch, I have
food scraps. Do I have to be a resident to
use the app?
Speaker 4 (08:28):
No, anyone can download that and you can just pop
it open.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Those are provided by the New York City Department's Sanitation,
by the way, and they have an amazing set of
links on their website. Let's talk a little bit too
about buildings and the responsibilities of property owners. What are
they kind of in for with this. If you have
a building with more than four units, it's on you.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Correct, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So in your article you note that ahead of April first,
Department of Sanitation had already issued more than twenty thousand
warnings to property owners for mixing organic waste in the trash.
What do you know about how the buildings are being
checked and what's considered finable offenses?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
So the Department of Sanitation is looking for buildings to
make sure that they comply with this new rule, and
they're you know, they may be opening bags and looking
in the trash, but mostly they'll look out for other
clues as well, like are there bins available? Have they
seen property owners or the supers put out bins and
they can see if they're complying or not.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Are they kind of doing a wandering check or are
they based on people being reported or what.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
It's both.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
So there are inspectors that go out and also they
are now taking complaints.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
You can complain through.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Three one one if your building is not providing a
bin or if you have suspicions that another building is not,
And so they are going off of those complaints as well.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And what also sort of constitutes a finable offense? Like
say I've forgotten then I put my dog waste in
the you know, with everything.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Else, I think there's some forgiveness here.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
You know, when I talk to the Sanitation department about this,
they weren't looking to sort of go through every single thing.
Or if you toss an apple core into the trash, it's.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Not like you'll probably get fined.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
It's mostly to make sure that the building owners and
property owners are putting forth a good faith effort here.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And what does the Department of Sanitation offer for landlords
to kind of help them be compliant and help them
help their tenants be compliant.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah, there's lots of outreach sessions available. The Department Stantation
will do engagement in a building. There's also some other
nonprofit groups that offer that. There's lots of resources online
just educational resources as well as decals and posters things
like that that you can download, print out and then
put around the building that you own, or even just
(10:41):
stick to the bin to show your tenants what exactly
they need to do and how they should do it.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
You also had mentioned community gardens you could drop off
your fruit scraps at some community gardens and green markets.
Will that still be available?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
And if you want to use the compost that the
city makes for your own garden, how do you get it?
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, well, landscapers can buy the compost directly from the
Department of Sanitation. But the Sanitation department is also doing
giveaways and they have events that you can find on
their website and different burroughs at different times, especially in
the spring, and pick that up for free. And there's
also places one in Staten Island and one in Brooklyn
(11:22):
that anyone can go to and pick up compost.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And just to go back. What other topics have you
covered in this series regarding recycling in the Five Boroughs?
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So this article is the third in a series it's
the third guide I have written about recycling and material
diversion from landfilled Essentially, the first two articles were about recycling,
how to do it and where it goes in New
York City, and this is the third, and it's about
composting in organics.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
It's an interesting thing. Again, people I think want to participate,
but maybe they don't all know all the details. What
do you know about sort of the learning curve in
the city, about how people are getting on board and
taking this really seriously.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Well, there's a ways to go. We are definitely not
doing this perfectly.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Organics make up about a third of what is in
our trash, and so if we can take that and
actually divert it from landfills and make it into the
compost or making it to biogas, that would just make
it really huge impact.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
We're far from that right now.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
But again, it's early in the program and we've had
decades worth of recycling and that took a while to
get people used to and we can still improve.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
But yeah, organics is sort of it's infancy.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Here you can find out more about the topic about
all kinds of recycling at home versus with food containers, etc.
Through the articles that Samantha has written for this city.
This one is how to compost in NYC, A guide.
It was published on March twenty seventh. Many clickable links
to this and her prior coverage for the city at
Thecity dot NYC. Samantha Maldonado, thank you for being on
(12:54):
to Get Connected.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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