Summer is just around the corner! Do you have a place to put those watermelon rinds, peach pits, and pineapple stems to add to NYC compost? The New York Department of Sanitation and Big Reuse will be giving away free compost containers for your kitchen, NYC compost information, coloring books, 1lb bags of compost, and temporary tattoos to visitors on June 2nd! Be sure to stop by and contribute to your city through composting. Did you know, Queens compost is currently being used to fuel homes?

From the New York Times:

“How New Yorkers’ Food Scraps Get ‘Digested’ to Provide Gas for Homes”

by Robin Shulman Agüeros (April 9th, 2023)

“The program is called “curbside composting” — but so far, nothing is being composted. The food scraps collected in Queens go to two sites to be “digested” — microorganisms break down most of the material in tanks, creating biogas and a reduced mass of solid, nutrient-rich concentrate that can be used as a fertilizer or soil replacement.

At one of the two sites, the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, food scraps collected from western Queens are mixed with sewage. Once processed, they produce more gas than is needed to heat the plant.

On March 31, for the first time, the plant began consistently injecting cleaned and refined gas into the pipelines of National Grid to serve about 2,500 homes.

As the plant processes more food, it could eventually provide enough gas for heat, hot water and stoves in 5,200 homes. This would reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels by more than 90,000 metric tons, the equivalent of removing nearly 19,000 cars from the road, officials said.”