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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Gabriel Gilson, Student from Urban Assembly New York Harbor School
2:28:05
ยท
161 sec
Gabriel Gilson, a student from Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, testifies in support of community composting projects in New York City. He emphasizes the importance of these projects for urban communities and shares his personal experiences with limited composting options in Hell's Kitchen.
- Highlights the need for more community composting sites to reduce food waste and improve soil quality
- Describes his school's composting efforts in collaboration with Earth Matter, demonstrating the positive impact on sustainability
- Calls for continued funding of community composting projects to benefit New York's environment
High School Student
2:28:05
Yes.
2:28:05
My name is Gabriel Gilson.
2:28:07
I support the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School.
2:28:10
Oh, right.
2:28:11
You're good.
2:28:13
Sorry about that.
2:28:14
My name is Gabriel Gilson.
2:28:15
I am with the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School.
2:28:19
Try to get started with my speech.
2:28:22
Great.
2:28:22
Alright.
2:28:23
Councilman Abe Brayu, sorry, and members of the committee on sanitation and solid waste.
2:28:29
In the past, we recognize that this committee has done lots of work maintaining funding for community composting projects and we are incredibly thankful for that.
2:28:38
However, community composting projects are still a great risk.
2:28:42
Many myths are spread about composting and one such myth is that composting just isn't for urban dwellers such as ourselves.
2:28:48
This is actually false and the fact is that community composting is for urban communities because people and communities rely on other and so community composting creates a sustainable loop in which people and communities can trade their organic matter for compost which goes back into the community as fertilizer for places like community gardens and urban farms.
2:29:08
In my own experience, my apartment building community in Hell's Kitchen has little access to community composting.
2:29:14
The only options we really have are the municipal composting orange bins, which are fairly difficult to use.
2:29:21
Or two community composting sites at Hudson River Park and Matthews Palmer Playground on 40 Sixth Street.
2:29:27
And therefore a lot of food is wasted that could be put back in the community.
2:29:32
So if we had more community composting sites in our community, a lot more waste would be put back into the environment as compost, improving the health and quality of soil, allowing for more food to be grown in our community.
2:29:46
Some ways that we can fix this issue are to encourage people within communities to give their compostable materials, sorry, to whatever community composting sites may be in their area as well as raising funding for community composting organizations so they can actually get composting operations underway.
2:30:03
Now I can speak from experience, because at Harbor School we work a lot on composting, especially within the Marine Affairs program.
2:30:11
We take food scraps from our mess hall and tumble them in composting bins and we work closely with
Shaun Abreu
2:30:18
You have another twenty seconds or so?
High School Student
2:30:20
Yeah, another twenty seconds
Shaun Abreu
2:30:21
should be We
High School Student
2:30:23
work closely with Earth Matter, a community composting organization in our area.
2:30:27
This makes school more, this makes our school more sustainable because our food scraps go back into the community as compost for gardens and urban farms in our area.
2:30:35
So, I'd like to reiterate that we are thankful for the work that has been done to keep community composting afloat, but it is for the environment in New York that we continue to fund community composting projects.