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TESTIMONY

Former Instructor of the Master Composter Course on the Impact and Challenges of Curbside Compost Collection Programs

2:03:59

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127 sec

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A former instructor of the Master Composter Course discusses the impact and inherent challenges of curbside compost collection programs, emphasizing the vital role of Master Composters and critiquing the Department of Sanitation's metrics.

The success of Staten Island's curbside compost collection pilot is attributed to Master Composters' efforts in promotion, education, and participation.
Master Composters, despite their contributions, are often dismissed or labeled as elitist.
Experience in Seattle with the tilt alliance highlighted the impracticality of composting food scraps in urban settings and the lower quality of commercial and industrial compost.
The underutilization of community gardens and spaces for compost indicates a disconnect in recognizing the qualitative benefits of community composting.
The Department of Sanitation's metrics, focusing on tonnage, yardage, and outreach numbers, are criticized for failing to capture the true value of community composting efforts.

UNKNOWN

2:03:59

Sorry.

2:04:00

Yeah.

2:04:00

I need you to there for a second.

2:04:01

Tough act to follow there.

2:04:04

I'm a Staten Islander and a former instructor of the master composer course.

2:04:08

I wanna say Good afternoon, and thanks everybody for engaging this important conversation.

2:04:14

As I said, I'm Staten Islander, and I wanted to mention that the pilot program for the curbside collection was launched here on Staten Island, and it was only as successful as it was due to master composter promotion, outreach, education, and participation.

2:04:28

Master Composites are dedicated, volunteers recruited, trained, and managed by the Department of Sanitation.

2:04:34

That helped to increase diversion rates and act as frontline representation for the Department of Sanitation to enable the success of say pilot programs about curbside comp compost collection.

2:04:46

Their reward after all this work is to be thanked but really somewhat spurned and dismissed.

2:04:50

As elitist or as true believers.

2:04:52

I happen to spend some time out in Seattle working with the tilt alliance, the origins of the master composter program that New York City plan designed their program after.

2:05:02

And the number one thing that they teach out there is that it is not possible to compost food scraps within the city limits.

2:05:09

They describe it as dangerous.

2:05:11

Because of this removal of this waste stream as a resource for the community.

2:05:16

I observed underutilized community gardens and other community spaces and a reliance on commercial and industrial compost that was in poor quality, but without a populous that was able to identify it as poor quality because they lacked the tactile visual ability to to understand what good compost looks like.

2:05:39

I wanna say a little bit more about community gardens and community spaces.

2:05:41

These are great ways of understanding community composting, and it reveals why the Department of Sanitation preferred metrics of tonnage and yardage and number of people reach are wrong headed.

2:05:51

The value of community gardens are not measured by the tonnage of food they produce or the percentage of New York City residents that they feed, there are less tangible, less trackables.

UNKNOWN

2:06:03

Thank you.

2:06:04

Your time has expired.

UNKNOWN

2:06:06

Thank you.

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Member of the Public on the Deterioration of New York City's Public Spaces and Infrastructure

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Anita from Earth Matter New York on Enhancing Community Composting and Organic Waste Management