NYCHA is committed to making buildings and grounds visibly clean and pest-free by 2025. To achieve this goal, NYCHA must raise its recycling rate, since recyclables make up more than 1/3 of NYCHA’s waste stream. Providing educational materials to residents is a critical piece of improving our recycling rate. Click on the headings below for more information on how to recycle different materials.

The New York City Department of Sanitation encourages New Yorkers to turn food scraps and yard waste into compost.

Did you know that food scraps and yard waste make up more than 30% of our trash in NYC? Making compost is one way to keep these items out of the landfills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create a useful resource.

Learn how you can reduce food waste, make compost, improve your environment and fight climate change on Make Compost, Not Trash.

The NYC Compost Project Hosted by Big Reuse is part of a community-scale composting network that works to rebuild our soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to produce and use compost locally.

Questions about compost? Email compost@bigreuse.org

New York Community Composting

The NYC Compost Project, created by the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNY) in 1993, works to rebuild NYC’s soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to produce and use compost locally.

NYC Compost Project programs are carried out by teams of DSNY-funded staff at seven partner organizations: Big Reuse, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Earth Matter NY, LES Ecology Center, The New York Botanical Garden, Queens Botanical Garden, and Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden.

 Learn How to Compost
Visit our online order form to download PDFs of composting tip sheets and brochures.

If you have questions about setting up your own compost system, contact nyccompostproject@dsny.nyc.gov.

Established in 2011, the GrowNYC Compost Program strives to make composting second nature for all New Yorkers by operating residential Food Scrap Drop-off sites and partnering with community composting facilities to make compost locally.

Currently, re-building and fundraising in the wake of budget cuts related to COVID-19, the Compost Program has re-opened 51 food scrap drop-off sites serving 6 thousand regular weekly participants, diverting over 25 tons of food scraps from landfills each week. 

See updates on GrowNYC locations, and check the citywide map for more options.

To support our work, please donate here.