TESTIMONY
Courtney Scheffler from the Grown NYC Workers Collective on Advocating for Community Composting Funding and Legislation
1:39:56
·
147 sec
Courtney Scheffler emphasizes the necessity of community composting programs for environmental justice and waste equity in NYC.
- Scheffler, a compost coordinator with Grow NYC, speaks on behalf of the Grown NYC Workers Collective.
- The testimony underscores the essential services provided by the program, including food scrap collection and education across the Five boroughs.
- The speaker highlights the economic implications of potential program cuts, mentioning imminent layoffs and personal financial impact.
- Scheffler calls for increased city council support through budget allocation and legislation to sustain community composting.
- The significance of investing in community-facing programs for environmental justice, especially in areas like the Bronx experiencing waste equity challenges, is stressed.
Courtney Scheffler
1:39:56
Hi.
1:39:56
My name is Courtney Scheffler.
1:39:58
I'm a proud member of the grown YC Workers Collective, a labor union with the retail wholesale and department store union.
1:40:04
I work as a compost coordinator and driver with Grow NYC and together with our partners at the New York City compost project, we serve communities throughout the Five boroughs.
1:40:13
Providing food scrap collections, processing outreach, education, access, and finished compost.
1:40:19
Our workers provide essential work waste diversion services to neighborhoods all over the city.
1:40:26
The city council must fight to fill over or this program by ensuring sufficient funding for community composting in this budget and also mandating that this program exists through legislation.
1:40:38
We are asking for organics to be processed hyperlocally to where they are produced through community composting over anaerobic digestion, for the health of our neighborhoods and for our livelihoods.
1:40:51
45 of my coworkers are facing imminent layoffs, and I will be living paycheck to paycheck, but with half of my paycheck gone with the loss of this programming.
1:41:02
This program, it's not expensive.
1:41:04
It constitutes only 0.3% of the city's sanitation budget.
1:41:09
And we've been here before.
1:41:11
There were budget cuts to community composting during the pandemic, and every week I was asked when compost would return, when compost would be accessible.
1:41:20
I worked at Parkchester Green Market in the Bronx.
1:41:23
Food scraps drop off sites there were the first to be cut and the last to be restored.
1:41:27
It was up to us to build trust with workers that was broken with communities, and we are chronically disappointing and breaking that trust with communities when we are facing budget cuts like this.
1:41:39
Investing in communities is always worth it, especially those that are disproportionately experiencing environmental justice.
1:41:46
It is a disgrace to cut these programs that are just beginning to remedy barriers to waste equity in the Bronx, and smart bins alone will not exemplify waste equity by any means.
1:41:57
This comes just as our union has entered negotiations for a first contract to make our workplace truly sustained.
UNKNOWN
1:42:02
Your time has expired.
Shaun Abreu
1:42:04
I know you're, like, 2¢ since we're finishing so you could finish.
Courtney Scheffler
1:42:07
Sure.
1:42:08
Instead of negotiating our first contract as a union, we're also negotiating for our jobs.
1:42:13
Funding New York City compost project and these programs that grow in my sea, it's a means for this administration to realize its proposed environmental objectives.
1:42:22
Thank you for your time.
