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'Commuter Composting' Pulling Into Subway Stations in LIC and Greenpoint

 Commuters can now drop their food scraps off the Vernon Blvd. 7 Train and Greenpoint G Train Stations.
Build It Green!NYC Expands Commuter Composting
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LONG ISLAND CITY — Next stop, Brooklyn.

A composting program in Queens that lets residents drop off food scraps on the way to their local train station is expanding to Long Island City and Greenpoint.

BIG!Compost, a program of the Astoria-based Build It Green!NYC, is starting new drop-off sites at the Vernon Boulevard-Jackson Avenue 7 train station in Hunters Point, and the G train stop in Greenpoint.

Both locations will operate weekly during Monday morning rush hours, starting in June.

"Our goal is to make composting as easy as possible for residents," Gina Baldwin, development and public engagement coordinator for BIG!Compost, said in a statement announcing the expansion.

"By setting up food scrap drop-offs in locations where residents are walking past every day on the way to work, we hope to engage New Yorkers who may not be aware of how easy and fun it is to divert food waste from the landfill."

BIG!Compost is also adding drop-off sites at the Forest Hills Greenmarket, which is held on Sundays at Queens Boulevard and 70th Avenue, and at the Build It Green!NYC Warehouse in Gowanus, at 69 9th St.

The organization operates 15 drop-off sites at locations in Queens and Brooklyn in an effort to cut down on the estimated 650,000 tons of food New Yorkers throw away each year. The commuter composting program was launched in March at the Broadway N/Q station in Astoria.

The scraps collected by the group are processed for use by the city in public parks and gardens and also by Brooklyn Grange, which uses the compost for its rooftop farm on Northern Boulevard in Long Island City.

Drop-off sites accept waste like fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, corn cobs, egg shells, newspapers and a slew of other items for composting, though can't take any meat, dairy or cat and dog waste.

The BIG!Compost program is funded through North Star Fund’s Greening Western Queens Fund, and partners with the NYC Department of Sanitation’s NYC Compost Project Local Organics Recovery Program.