The Compost Revolution

Oct 10, 2008 by Juliet Linderman

The Power’s In the Worm Poop

There’s something rotten in the neighborhood of Williamsburg, but it’s no Shakespeare-era political scandal: This time, it’s coming from the caverns of our refrigerators, the corners of our cupboards, the depths of our trash cans and the creases of our take-out delivery bags. It’s our forgotten fruits and veggies, our moldy leftovers, last night’s dinner that we just couldn’t finish.

Luckily, the folks at the North Brooklyn Compost Project are taking our perishables and putting them to good use, and last Tuesday evening they threw a fundraiser meet-and-greet at Urban Rustic Café to engage and educate the Williamsburg/Greenpoint community about how to turn their waste into valuable energy through practicing the art of composting.

The fundraiser featured a raffle, a silent auction, a spread of donated food from the Rustic Café and a special question-and-answer session with Colin Beaven, aka, No Impact Man, a compost enthusiast who managed to live for an entire year without negatively impacting the environment.

“I talk to people all the time who think composting is icky,” said compost extraordinaire Kate Zidar, one of the founders of the project. “I think food rotting in bags along the curb is ickier. Folks tend to come around when they actually see how composting happens, and that it’s actually fun.”

The North Brooklyn Compost Project is a volunteer-run organization dedicated to practicing and promoting compost as an environmentally, economically and socially viable way to shrink the carbon foot print, cut down on trash accumulation, and live healthier, happier, eco-friendlier lives. Every Saturday, NBCP sets up shop at a plot on North 12th and Driggs, on the southeast border of McCarren Park between the dog run and the Green Dome Garden, and invites community residents to bring their leftover fruits, vegetables, eggshells, teabags and all other biodegradable kitchen items (with the exception of anything containing meat, fish or excessive amounts of grease) to compost, creating dense, vitamin-rich, and surprisingly sweet-smelling soil.

NBCP was founded about four years ago as part of the Green Dome Garden, when Zidar and fellow master composter Jo Micek decided to seek out a spot in McCarren Park and start composting their perishables. It became an independent project over the summer, and now has over 130 volunteers and participants.

“Composting is a direct action that anyone can take to transform their own environmental impact from negative to positive,” Zidar explained. “We started it as a way to deal with garden waste and make food for the garden plants, and now it is a freestanding community program that generates compost available for the garden, nearby street trees, the park and even for participants to take home. Composting helps people realize the impact of personal effort.”

Zidar’s reasons for founding the collective are varied and dynamic, and involve not only ecological and environmental health, but also social justice.

“New York City has an entirely 100% export garbage economy,” Zidar explained. “We haul our waste to the incinerators, and there are major impacts along the way, and these burdens are disproportionate: They affect only those living in certain areas, with things like asthma, constant roadway construction, pollution and contamination. Composting definitely has an environmental justice edge to it. If more people were composting, a huge chunk of our export waste stream could be dealt with locally.”

Among the many supporters of the project are roommates Michael Lanzano and Sinton Vignos, two yoga-loving environmentalists with green thumbs and a passion for compost. They first learned of NBCP after signing up for a share with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), an organic and local produce collective that shares the corner of the park with NBCP.

“Composting is like teaming up with microbes,” Lanzano said. “Even the smallest entities live holistically, symbiotically. Taking an old plant and turning it into mulch for a living plant, it’s just about the nicest thing you can do, making something new grow.”

Vignos agreed, adding, “There’s so much pressure in this country to consume all of your food in order to capture its energy,” he explained. “Instead, you can recycle that energy through composting; you can put that energy back into the earth to create new things.”

Aside from the obvious environmental advantages of composting, it is a process that makes political and economic sense as well, especially in a massive metropolis like New York City.

“Because it is so expensive to pick up food waste, the Department of Sanitation just has not been able to move forward,” said Ellen Covas, a longtime Williamsburg resident and a Department of Sanitation employee. “The most logical and practical thing is to compost.”

In addition, Covas, Vignos and Lanzano have all found a solid community of like-minded individuals through composting, and believe that, aside from the economic and ecological returns, composting is a socially productive activity that effectively trains individuals to think responsibly about the environment and their actions.

“I forged a friendship with my neighbor across the street, he is a cabinet maker,” said Covas. “He donates his sawdust to me. We bonded over compost.”

Similarly, Vingos and Lanzano believe that while the concrete benefits of composting are vast, the message it sends to the public is perhaps even more valuable.

“Composting helps create an environmentally sustainable infrastructure,” Lanzano said. “Living in a city, it can be easy to forget that we are part of an ecosystem, and as composters, we are ambassadors of consciousness.”

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, whose short Q and A was the evening’s featured presentation, explained his connection to composting, as well as his reasoning behind going green at all costs, sacrificing electricity, appliances, transportation and even running water for an entire year.

“There has to be grassroots involvement in understanding the natural cycle,” Beavan said. “Our consumptive lifestyles are causing global disaster, and we’ve got to take some responsibility for ourselves. When did we stop feeling connected with nature?”

As for composting, Beaven couldn’t say enough about its merits.

“We have to act and live our lives as though we make a difference,” he said with a smile. “The power truly is in the worm poop.”