As a New York City resident and a member of the Harvest team, I was pleased to attend last week’s roundtable discussion on food waste recycling in NYC hosted by NYSAR3. The speakers included Christine Datz-Romero from the Lower East Side Ecology Center, Andrew Rigie from New York State Restaurant Association, and Adam Pasquale from Action Carting Environmental Services, Inc.
The theme of Christine’s presentation was ‘Composting is Hot!”, which reflected the popularity of her program and the burgeoning trend and awareness of the opportunity to recycle food waste. Residents of NYC can go to stands located at various different Greenmarkets in the city to drop off kitchen scraps. The Ecology Center’s facility then processes about six tons per week under the Manhattan Bridge using an in-vessel system and windows, which is amazing to think about, given the density of Manhattan. They are a good neighbor with their clean and odor-contained facility and the best part about it, is that the compost is sold back to city residents at the Union Square Greenmarket. (In case you’re wondering, some New Yorkers are lucky enough to have outdoor space while others make do with windowsill herb and flower gardens). Andrew talked about food waste from the perspective of restaurants. In a challenging, relatively low-margin business, restaurants are always looking for ways to cut costs. However, from Andrew’s presentation and from some comments during the Q&A, it seems that sustainability and reducing their environmental footprint has become just as important. It seems that the restaurants are remembering the first ‘R’ and focus on ways to reduce their waste. Step 2 is to work with companies like Action and Harvest who are providing services and facilities that recycle restaurant food waste. Adam’s presentation discussed how Action works with their restaurant customers to source-separate and recycle their food waste. My main take away from today’s roundtable is that while there is a lot of hard work ahead of us, the movement supporting organics recycling combined with energy & nutrient recovery continues to gain momentum in all areas of the country. The private market, the community, non-profits, and governments are all moving in the right direction. I’m very proud that it’s happening in my backyard. (To be clear, for me and my ‘cozy’ NYC apartment, that’s a figurative backyard).
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