Councilmember Erik Bottcher has secured the future of community composting initiatives in Hell’s Kitchen, staving off the threat of closure due to citywide budget cuts.
Amid austerity measures that have touched every corner of New York’s City operations, the Hell’s Kitchen Community Compost Center at Mathews-Palmer Park faced termination — a casualty of the economic fallout from the pandemic, a burgeoning migrant crisis and shrinking tax revenues. The proposed cuts were part of Mayor Eric Adams’s broader budget trimming proposals — which included slashing the NYPD spending, reducing opening days at New York Public Libraries and reducing educational funding.
The Community Compost Center, which recently celebrated its third anniversary, is more than a site for processing organic waste; it has become a nexus for neighborhood engagement and education on sustainability practices. Its potential shuttering was a significant blow to environmental efforts and a setback for community morale.
In response to the looming budgetary axe, Councilmember Bottcher took action, harnessing discretionary funds from his office to preserve the compost drop-off sites in Mathews-Palmer Playground and Manhattan Plaza. Further, Bottcher coordinated with the Lower East Side Ecology Center, ensuring the allocation of City Council funds to maintain essential composting services. Additional support came from anonymous private funding, which played a crucial role in keeping Abington Square and Union Square composting sites operational.
“The Mayor is asking every agency to cut back everything by 5%. This cut on composting is not going to put a dent in the budget,” said the Councilmember as he chatted to volunteers at the Compost Center yesterday afternoon. “We’ve allocated $30,000 through the council’s initiative fund,”
He added: “I want to thank all the community members who advocated for the preservation of these compost drop-off sites. Even though we’re able to keep these sites open for now, we must continue fighting to keep community composting funded in the City budget. Our budget gap is real, but it not going to be solved by eliminating these relatively small, but essential, programs.”
“We are truly lucky here in Hell’s Kitchen to have a Councilmember who has been such a true champion of community composting — from helping us get the site started three years ago to saving the program, at least in our neighborhood, during these senseless budget cuts. We need Mayor Adams to follow CM Bottcher’s leadership and restore funding to community composting throughout our city,” said local organizer and Master Composter Chana Widawski.
“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it,” said Martha Gelnaw, dropping off food scraps for composting before meeting with the Councilmember. Gelnaw works with other volunteers to clean the bins and make sure any non-compostable items are separated. The volunteers are proud that the Lower East Side processing team says they have the best quality food scraps from any unmanned site around the city. “We’re doing our job. I just have to hold my nose and do it. I know it’s worth it,” said Gelnaw.
Open seven days a week during park hours, the compost drop-off site at W45th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue offers a year-round space for locals to unload their compostable household scraps, which are picked up weekly by the Lower East Side Ecology Center. If you’d like to take compostable waste at the Mathews-Palmer Playground food scrap drop-off, a complete list of accepted items can be found here. If you’d like to become a volunteer, email hellskitchencommons@gmail.com for more information.
I’m glad to hear your news about composting in Hell’s Kitchen. What about the composting bin on the southeast corner of 10th Avenue and 43rd Street? It seems to have disappeared! Please adivse.
Best wishes,
Resident of Manhattan Plaza
Thank you, Erik Bottcher!
Thanks!
Again it seems Eric just keeps pandering to the overly vocal minorities. Out of all the things we could save we’re saving literal trash rather than keeping our libraries open, our street safe or our city improved. Werner
Werner, our compost bins, just here at MPP have saved thousands of pounds of food waste from the “trash”, where rats feast on it, and from landfills where it is a major contributor to methane gas pollution and climate change. That is no small thing. You call us the “overly vocal minorities”. How are YOU planning to keep libraries open, our streets safe? Many of us volunteer our efforts and voices to all of these.
Now, this is the kind of action I like to see! Thank you, Councilmember Bottcher, for helping local residents make a difference.
Composting is something we can all participate in on a daily basis. I have little money go give to the homeless or the libraries but I can compost. I’ve also been able to turn three dog toilet tree pits into gardens with soil and mulch from these composting groups. So in the spring when you are seeing “hosts of golden daffodils” around the neighborhood, think you could be doing your bit, composting, planting, picking up litter.