Mandatory composting begins for all five NYC boroughs next week

Most city residents are supposed to start separating compostable food and garden scraps from their trash in all five boroughs Oct. 6 — but if their recycling track record is any indication, it may be an uphill battle.

The new composting measure, passed by the City Council last year, has been touted as a “key” part of the Big Apple’s war on rats, according to Gotham’s Department of Sanitation.

“Curbside composting fights rats and helps the planet,” Sanit Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement.

Food scraps, leaf and other garden waste and food-soiled paper will all be accepted on regular recycling days year-round as part of the new composting collection across the city, the agency said.

Queens was the first borough to begin regular composting pickups in 2022, followed by Brooklyn in 2023. The program came to The Bronx and Staten Island earlier this year and will finally hit Manhattan in October.

New Yorkers living in public housing will be exempt from the mandate because they fall under federal rules, according to the New York Times.

But according to some of the most recent research on city recycling trends, residents are failing in doing their job either way.

“Collection productivity remains low, collection costs remain high, and many recyclables are ultimately disposed of with refuse,’’ said Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, to the City Council at a hearing in 2022, one of the most recent instances where the issue was publicly addressed.

“New York City’s recycling rates continue to lag its relatively modest 23 percent goal, despite some recent improvement,” she said at the time.

City officials hope to turn the lagging trend around.

Come this Sunday, residential buildings will be required to provide tenants access to labeled composting bins, which will still be available for free by request in Manhattan, Staten Island and The Bronx until Oct. 28.

Owners of buildings with more than four units must also provide a storage area.

Summonses will begin in April 2025 for those who don’t separate out their compost, with $25 and $50 first-and second-offense fines, respectively, for property owners with one to eight residential units. For owners with nine or more residential units, the fines will be $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense, and $300 for a third and subsequent offenses.

The compost will be burned to heat local homes, sold to landscapers or be given away in 40-pound bags to New Yorkers for home and garden use, city officials said.

“Without these programs, it would all go to landfill, becoming nothing but harmful greenhouse gasses,” Sanitation said, noting that last fiscal year saw about 211 million pounds of compostable material in the boroughs rescued from landfills, up from 165 million the year before.

“This citywide rollout will balloon those incredible numbers even further,” the agency said. 

The composting requirement comes on the heels of another trash mandate targeting residential buildings. That rule, which will begin Nov. 12, will require the owners of residential buildings with up to nine units to put trash out in bins – not trash bags – with secured lids.

“The City Council voted last year to make fantastic and much-needed updates to New York City’s trash collection system,” said City Council Member Keith Powers, referencing other waste programs that would require food scrap drop-off sites and recycling plants in each borough.

“The new brown bins are a long overdue upgrade, allowing DSNY to turn our food scraps into compost that will help grow new plants, all while battling the city’s familiar problem: the rats,” he added. 

“Our food scraps will be their snacks no more.”