http://enviroworld.ca/residents-info/backyard-composting
The Future of Composting in NYC
A Midterm Report on our Progress
Ariel Yardeni, Gen Hua Tan, Rishi Ajmera, Edward Pinkasik, Eleni
Efstathiadis
Shaping the Future of NYC, Spring 2014
Professor MacBride
03/24/14
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 NYC
A 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:
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We conducted interviews with Jennifer Blackwell, of New York City
Composting Project of Brooklyn
We gathered footage at the local green markets of civilians coming to
compost waste, and we will be doing follow-up interviews with them
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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.
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.
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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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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
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-
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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.
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
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(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
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.
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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
Ariel
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
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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Rishi
Gen
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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Ariel Yardeni
[Class, Semester]
[Teacher Name]
[Insert Date]
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