I just came from a meeting with some of the best minds in the food waste diversion business in New York City:

'The Challenges of Food Waste Management,' put on by the Buy Recycled Alliance of NY (BRANY) and the New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling (NYSAR3) [Now that's a mouthful!]

There is currently a huge interest in this field, with work being done in composting, insinkerator to wastewater treatment, and biogas creation. Attendees came from a range of professions – soil science, compost education, sanitation. It was easy to see the passion for this work in the room.

There is a lot being done in food waste diversion in NYC, and yet we've hardly scratched the surface.

It is estimated that about 50% of New York City's wastestream is biodegradable with over 17% of that being from food. A tiny fraction of that waste is diverted by some really great food waste collection programs. A couple of examples:

Lower East Side Ecology Center (LESEC)

The LESEC collects 300 tons of food waste per year from 1,500 households at the Union Square Greenmarket collection stand. People come from all of the boroughs, mostly Manhattan and Brooklyn on their way to work or on their way to shopping at the market to drop off their food scraps in one of the big collection barrels. LESEC then brings most of this food waste to their in-vessel composting system in East River Park, a partnership they formed with the Parks Department. The organic matter is processed in this vessel for 2 weeks and then cured in windrows. In total, the process takes 3 months. The compost is then sold back to the public at the Greenmarket.

LESEC also provides community outreach, education, and even materials to do at-home composting.

ACTION Carting

ACTION started their organic composting program in 2003 and has since been able to collect 38 tons of organics per day with 2 specially outfitted tanker trucks. The trucks collect from their clients throughout the city, including Whole Foods, NYU, and the Empire State Building. This material is then brought to one of a handful of processing facilities. One of these facilities is run by Converted Organics, located in Woodbridge, NJ. They receive about 25% of the organic material which they convert to both solid and liquid fertilizer used for large scale application (golf course, agriculture) and for retail sale at Whole Foods. The other recipients are farms upstate and in Connecticut, both about a 4 1/2 hour round trip from NYC.

While the issue of localizing food waste management was touched upon only briefly at the meeting, what I didn't get to ask was this: What about the 12,000 acres of vacant land in NYC? Couldn't there be an incentive for landowners to convert this land to low tech composting facilities, similar to what LESEC is doing in East River Park?

I'd like to see that happen. I'd also like to see the compost created on vacant lots used locally to produce food for equitable distribution throughout the city.

This is one of those cases where there is not one right answer. If everyone in the city decided to compost tomorrow (an unlikely scenario) there would be no infrastructure to deal with it. Of course, that's not the way things work. It's going to take a combination of methods (in-vessel composting, anaerobic digestion, etc) to make use of all of the organic waste this city generates. And this movement needs time to build. The challenges of infrastructure, education, space, attitude, and political will need to be overcome.

And once these challenges are overcome, I see a huge market waiting to come to life that both closes the food waste to production loop and provides nutrient-dense produce to New Yorkers.