{"id":16604,"date":"2018-04-14T21:35:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T01:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/articles\/a-tribute-to-david-buckel-community-composting-giant-champion-for-equality\/"},"modified":"2024-05-14T11:51:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T11:51:36","slug":"tribute-david-buckel","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/es\/article\/composting-for-community\/tribute-david-buckel","title":{"rendered":"Un tributo a David Buckel: Gigante del compostaje comunitario, campe\u00f3n de la igualdad"},"template":"","class_list":["post-16604","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_type-article","initiatives-composting-for-community","authors-brenda-platt"],"acf":{"details":{"featured_image":5658,"background_color":"","article_type":[134],"initiative":15,"display_event_fields":false,"start_date":null,"end_date":null,"start_time":null,"end_time":null,"time_zone":"America\/New_York","virtual_event":false,"location":"","topics":false,"impact_areas":false,"abstract":"

It is with deep sadness that I share the news of David Buckel\u2019s passing. This morning David set himself on fire in Brooklyn, New York, in protest for people to lead less selfish lives as a way to protect the planet. He was a prominent lawyer in the fight for gay rights. But he was also a nationally renown pioneer in community composting.… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","authors_tax":[601]},"sidebar":{"title":"\u00cdndice"},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

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It is with deep sadness that I share the news of David Buckel\u2019s passing. This morning David set himself on fire in Brooklyn, New York, in protest for people to lead less selfish lives as a way to protect the planet (New York Times<\/em> article here<\/a>). He was a prominent lawyer in the fight for gay rights. But he was also a nationally renown pioneer in community composting.<\/p>\n

\"\"After he retired from being a civil rights attorney, David was pivotal in developing various community compost sites in New York, with an expertise in regulatory compliance, urban farms, and configuration of operations to optimize community support\/participation and environmental sustainability. He became the compost site coordinator for the NYC Compost Project hosted by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden<\/a>. Located at the Red Hook Community Farm in Brooklyn, the compost site is the largest in the United States that processes entirely with renewable resources (solar, wind, human power). David was a master composter and a master at coordinating volunteers. He managed up to 2,000 volunteers a year who helped process more than 150 tons of compostable material by hand. With a focus on low-income communities, he developed the Red Hook site into one of the best run and most successful urban composting sites in the US and all without fossil fuel machines, something of which he was particularly proud. He created a model for under-resourced neighborhoods to keep their organics for their own benefit, greening where they live with more healthy food, beauty, and environmental stewardship.<\/p>\n

David used the Red Hook compost site to offer skills training and programming for teens and young adults from public housing. He used traditional farming practices like composting and food production as a platform to empower community youth and connect them to broader, universal environmental justice issues like climate change. He presented on the topic of community composting at local and national conferences as well as published in the compost industry\u2019s national monthly journal.<\/p>\n

He helped develop key principles of community composting<\/a> and was integral to my 2014 report, Growing Local Fertility: A Guide to Community Composting<\/a>, penning the section \u201cWhy is community participation and education a necessary component of community composting?\u201d He was particularly amazing at avoiding rodent problems at his urban composting site and produced how-to videos to share his wisdom.<\/p>\n