A community composting site in Queens is being tossed from its space.
The city Department of Parks and Recreation is set to evict the nonprofit Big Reuse from its Long Island City space under the Queensboro Bridge, where for over a decade crews have made millions of pounds of nutrient-rich compost from food scraps and leaf and yard waste.
That compost goes to urban farms, community gardens, street tree beds and other projects.
The organization will have to pack up by June 30 so that the Parks Department can start work to upgrade what’s known as Queensbridge Baby Park, located across the street from the bigger Queensbridge Park.
“We support improving Baby Queensbridge Park … We’re excited they’re doing it, but the little sliver that they’re improving does not mean they have to kick us off,” said Justin Green, Big Reuse’s executive director, who found out about the eviction last month and tried to stop it. “It’s going to effectively shut us down unless we can find another space to compost in the city.”
Meanwhile, Big Reuse’s compost processing site is not the only one with an uncertain future. Earth Matter, which runs a composting program and farm on Governors Island, and the Lower East Side Ecology Center aren’t sure where their operations will be amid changes to their usual locations.
The uncertainty about processing space comes as community compost groups fight for the reinstatement of city budget cuts to their programs, which threatened food scrap collections at Grow NYC farmers’ markets and other services. Private donations have helped sustain the composting operations for the year in the meantime.
Environmental advocates say community composting organizations, which not only process organic waste but provide public outreach and education, help ensure widespread engagement with the new citywide organics program rolling out from the Department of Sanitation — though not all material the city collects is actually composted.
“You will never have a successful curbside organics program if you don’t have a strong foundation of community-based education and training to demonstrate how and why it makes sense to participate,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Green vs. Green
It’s not the first time the Parks Department has tried to evict Big Reuse from its facility — which takes up less space than half a football field — in Queensbridge Park. In 2020, the agency wanted to use the space for maintenance vehicle parking. Ultimately, Parks agreed to extend Big Reuse’s licensing agreement.
But now, Parks is moving forward with plans to oust the group.
In a March 5 letter to Big Reuse, Parks First Deputy Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa called the organization’s use of space in the park as “temporary.”
“Parks has plans to revitalize the park through more public recreational amenities, increased access to greenways, and improved, beautified public space which will contribute to the neighborhood’s quality of life,” she wrote.
Construction on the park — which currently has handball courts and parking for city vehicles, alongside a bike and pedestrian path — is slated to start in the fall. During public input sessions for the park improvements, community members said they wanted Big Reuse to stay.
In a subsequent email obtained by THE CITY, Claudia Cereceda, chief of staff to Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue, wrote that the “permanent collection and processing of primarily household organic waste is not compatible with the agency’s core mission and Charter mandate.”
“It’s so frustrating because getting rid of a community resource and turning it into a parking lot is definitely not a Parks’ mandate,” Green said. “The community wants us to be there and every elected official wants us to be there.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and borough City Council members Julie Won, Shekar Krishnn, Shaun Abreu and Tiffany Cabán sent letters to Donoghue supporting Big Reuse’s continued use of the space.
“Given that multiple city agencies utilize lots under the Queensboro Bridge for agency parking, it would be unfortunate if this vital community resource was sacrificed for a handful of parking spaces,” the Councilmembers wrote.
Off the Island?
Elsewhere in the city, community composters are wondering where they’ll be processing food waste moving forward.
On the southeastern portion of Governors Island, Earth Matter runs a small farm with animals and turns organic waste into compost. The nonprofit holds public hours for island visitors, hosts school groups and offers training programs for adults.
But Marisa DeDominicis, Earth Matter’s executive director, said the operations will have to move in just over a year due to planned development on the island, and the details of the move are unclear. Under a 2021 rezoning, plans for hotels, offices, retail space and a climate research center are in the works.
“The island is very supportive of our work, very supportive of community composting, but has not provided us with a solid agreement of where we’re moving,” she said. “People come from all over to learn about compost, to see compost in the making, to see this closed loop in action, to see the Zero Waste Island, and for us to not have a solid agreement … is the concern.”
A new site, DeDominicis said, will require planning and preparation to make sure the new space is suitable for use, with good draining and areas for the chickens and even for possible rabbits next year.
“Thirteen months and counting down does not provide a lot of time to gracefully move without interruption in our operations and programming,” she said.
The Trust for Governors Island, which controls the space, and Earth Matter have been in communication about next steps about the new location.
“The Trust is committed to continuing composting activities on Governors Island and hopes to demonstrate fully circular operations with respect to organic matter,” said Trust Vice President of Public Affairs Sarah Krautheim in a statement.
But the Trust’s composting partnership with Earth Matter is not exclusive, and it will hold a competitive solicitation for composting operations on the island moving forward. The Trust said it would offer long-term space on the island to Earth Matter regardless of if the organization wins the composting bid.
Earth Matter, which has been on Governors Island for 15 years, makes compost from food scraps, landscaping waste and corn-based cutlery that comes from the Island, as well as material collected off the island from Grow NYC, the Lower East Side Ecology Center and the Parks Department. Their site is just over an acre — bigger than Grand Central Terminal’s main concourse.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, the Lower East Side Ecology Center doesn’t know where it will operate in the long term either.
The Ecology Center had its office and compost site headquartered in the historic Fireboat House in East River Park, but moved out in 2021 when construction began on the East Side Coastal Resiliency project for flood protection. Whether the Ecology Center will ever move back in is in the air, as city officials are now considering demolishing the Fireboat House after discovering the degraded state of the piers underneath the building.
For now, Ecology Center Executive Director Christine Datz-Romero said the alternative space in Seward Park that the Parks Department provided as an office has been without electricity or running water, so her staff can’t work there. (The electricity was turned on Wednesday and the water is now working, according to Parks.) And an alternative compost space for the center to use while construction on the resiliency project is ongoing hasn’t borne out.
“We are very anxious to get back into the park because you haven’t really been able to make compost out of the food scraps that we are still collecting,” Datz-Romero said.
The Ecology Center brings the food scraps its staff collects to Earth Matter and Big Reuse.
A new compost yard in East River Park is in design and expected to be ready by 2026. But a plan to develop a city-owned lot in Canarsie, Brooklyn, for the Ecology Center to use until then was halted when the city in November slashed the $2.1 million allocated for that project.