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TESTIMONY
Clare Miflin on the Necessity of Community Composting for a Greener, Equitable New York City
1:24:20
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151 sec
Clare Miflin, Executive Director of the Center for Zero Waste Design, articulates the vital role of community composting in achieving New York City's vision for a greener and more equitable future.
- Miflin stresses that community composting is indispensable for the city's long-standing vision of enhanced green infrastructure, including street trees and rain gardens.
- She evidences that extensive investment in green infrastructure necessitates a relatively modest investment in community composting for its maintenance.
- Miflin highlights the quality and local benefits of community composting, including volunteer engagement and potential for green job creation with consistent funding.
- The testimony affirms community composting as a means to inspire public participation in environmental initiatives, contrasting it with the less effective methods of rules and fines.
- Miflin endorses upcoming city initiatives like curbside organic collection but suggests improvements for enhancing recycling rates and program effectiveness.
Clare Miflin
1:24:20
Hi.
1:24:21
Thank you.
1:24:21
My name is Clara Mifflin.
1:24:22
I'm a Executive Director of the Center for Zero Waste Design.
1:24:27
You know, New York City has had a vision through, like, 3 mayors of a of a greener, thriving city that that has more street fees, has more rain gardens, access a sponge, I mean, this is more equitable.
1:24:42
This has been a vision for decades, and community composting is necessary to achieve this vision.
1:24:49
So I would say that cutting community composting is cutting the future vision of New York City.
1:24:55
Like, as the city changes, from relying on graham to structure concrete pipes, things like that to relying on street trees, rain gardens, to and parks to infiltrate storm water.
1:25:09
They've spent 1,000,000,000 of dollars on this.
1:25:12
Doesn't it make sense to spend 7 month $1 a year on the community composting because that is what you need.
1:25:19
You can't maintain green infrastructure in the same way as you could maintain pipe and concrete.
1:25:26
It's a very different thing to maintain.
1:25:28
So community composting is really good quality.
1:25:31
There's no little bits of plastic in it's done locally.
1:25:35
It engages volunteers and can create good green jobs if it's consistently funded.
1:25:40
So I'm really happy that council member nurses talking about these working with parks because community composting spread around done with parks could really change the city.
1:25:51
And I think just in terms of how the city approaches it, you can approach changing behavior with rules and fines but you don't convince a lot of people.
1:26:01
If you really wanna change behavior, you have to inspire and engage people, and community composting does that.
1:26:08
It gives people hope.
1:26:09
It gives people a way to tangibly participate in making the city greener and more equitable and better.
1:26:17
And it gives people far more conviction than a fine word to do the right thing.
1:26:21
So I think things so I think that needs to be factored in as the city changes the way it moves forward.
1:26:28
And I'm very happy that there's gonna be curbside organic citywide, and that they're making moves towards containerization.
1:26:37
But both of those things, just containerizing trash, that will make our re exciting rates worse.
1:26:43
With small tweaks, the programs could be way better.
Shaun Abreu
1:26:47
Thank thank you so much.
Clare Miflin
1:26:50
Thank you so much.