Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Composting Coming to Forest Hills Greenmarket

 A local group will start collecting household food scraps at the market in June.
Composting Coming to Forest Hills Greenmarket
View Full Caption

QUEENS — Nothing will be wasted.

Beginning in June, the Forest Hills Greenmarket will host a composting program where local residents will be able to dispose of their fruit and vegetable scraps.

The project is being conducted by BIG!Compost, a program of Build It Green!NYC funded through the NYC Compost Project Local Organics Recovery Program by the New York City Department of Sanitation. BIG!Compost is partnering with The Forest-Rego Compost Collective in Forest Hills to increase local participation in composting.

If the idea proves successful, the groups will collect scraps every Sunday between 10 a.m. and noon, until the end of the season.

Composting "is important because it significantly reduces the amount of garbage going to landfills, thereby reducing such costs as methane gas, which destroys the ozone,” said Renee Rivera of the Forest-Rego Compost Collective. “It also gives us nutrient-rich organic soil in a fraction of the time it takes Mother Nature to produce."

The scraps will be taken away by BIG!Compost, which will later process the material at the group's site underneath the Queensborough Bridge.

The compost will be brought back to the neighborhood and used to fertilize trees throughout the area, according to the Forest-Rego Compost Collective.

The Forest-Rego Compost Collective is hoping to get a larger compost site and garden in the neighborhood soon. It is currently negotiating the use of space behind the Home Depot in Rego Park, the group said.

The organization, which has recently received a $2,500 Citizens Committee Grant for promoting composting in the neighborhood, runs a demonstration composting site at The Church in the Gardens at 50 Ascan Ave. in Forest Hills. More than 60 families from the Forest Hills Community Supported Agriculture compost their scraps there, the group said.