About 14 million tons of waste are thrown out each year, costing the City of New York nearly $400 million annually to transport to distant landfills and incinerators. Organic waste, the largest portion of the city’s trash, decomposes in landfills, releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
GrowNYC has developed and scaled innovative solutions to tackle these challenges for 20 years and has partnered with the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) and the NYC Department of Education, Office of Sustainability (DOE) to implement comprehensive waste reduction, recycling, and composting programs in New York City neighborhoods and PreK–12 public schools across all five boroughs.
Our core programs included:
- Food Scrap Collection: Starting at Greenmarkets, GrowNYC grew the program to 75 collection sites, making it easy for New Yorkers to compost their food scraps. By the conclusion of the program GrowNYC had collected over 25 million pounds of food scraps for composting. This work proved that a curbside composting program could work in New York City.
- Recycling Outreach: GrowNYC staff would focus its outreach on community districts across the city with lagging recycling rates, working with building staff and residents alike to set up recycling stations, provide training, and technical support to improve participation in the city’s recycling program.
- Stop ‘N’ Swap®: A free to attend community reuse program that hosted events to enable neighbors to swap good items and divert waste from landfill, participants brought reusable items including gently used books, toys, fashionable clothing, housewares, and electronics.
- Zero Waste Schools Compost Curriculum: In collaboration with the NYC Department of Education and the Department of Sanitation, GrowNYC led efforts to enroll every single NYC public school through GrowNYC’s curbside compost curriculum.
GrowNYC employed a sustained, multi-faceted approach to community and school engagement, ensuring long-term behavioral and operational shifts. Making composting and recycling second nature to New Yorkers and NYC public school faculty and students.
By supporting the city’s curbside program, reduced pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and escalating rodent population, GrowNYC aided the City’s multimillion-dollar campaign to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on landfills, and to turn food scraps and yard waste into compost and clean energy.
The programs served as a critical waste reduction operation and educational pillar supporting the largest metropolitan city and school system in the United States in its waste diversion efforts. As a result of GrowNYC and partners’ compost collection success, New York City implemented the nation’s largest curbside composting program. Today, GrowNYC continues to partner with DSNY on residential curbside composting outreach.