Part 1 of the Government Support for Community Composting webinar series featured a Spotlight on New York City. The NYC Compost Project, created by the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) in 1993, works to rebuild NYC’s soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to produce and use compost locally. NYC Compost Project programs are carried out by teams of DSNY-funded staff at several partner organizations including Big Reuse, Earth Matter NY, LES Ecology Center. DSNY also supports a NYC Compost Project Master Composter Certificate Course, and many program graduates have gone on to cultivate community composting in the city.
The live webinar took place on May 4th, 2022
Watch the Recording
This webinar is one in a series the Institute for Local Self-Reliance offers to support a distributed and diverse composting infrastructure that includes community-sized and on-farm composting.
To view and listen to our past composting-related webinar recordings, click HERE.
PRESENTERS
Debbie Sheintoch – Director of Compost Programs and Partnerships Debbie Sheintoch works for the NYC Department of Sanitation as Director of Compost Programs and Partnerships. In this role, she oversees outreach for the residential curbside composting, implementation and growth of the food scrap drop-off program, community composting and mid-scale compost educational sites, compost education, and the DSNY compost distribution program.
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Renee Crowley – Deputy Director As Deputy Director at the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Renee cultivates programs within the organization that help grow a more sustainable New York City. The Ecology Center has been a pioneer in community based models of urban sustainability since 1987. For more than a decade, the Ecology Center has partnered with the NYC Dept of Sanitation to carry out NYC Compost Project programs.
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The NYC Compost Project Hosted by Big Reuse The NYC Compost Project Hosted by Big Reuse is part of a community-scale composting network that works to rebuild NYC’s soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to produce and use compost locally. Big Reuse works with 70+ food scrap drop-off sites to collect food scraps that it processes into compost at two sites: under the Queensboro Bridge in Queens and at its Salt Lot facility located on the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. It distributes the compost produced locally to community organizations. |
Devin Reitsma – Project Coordinator
MODERATOR
 Brenda Platt – Director, Composting for Community Initiative, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), Washington, DC
Brenda and her team at ILSR are supporting community-scale composters via forums, webinars, podcasts, guides, policies, training, and more. In 2017, the US Composting Council awarded her its H. Clark Gregory Award for outstanding service to the composting industry through grassroots efforts. In 2019, BioCycle magazine featured Brenda as one of its organics recycling trailblazers. She has a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from The George Washington University. |
