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Curbside Organic Collection Coming to UWS Apartment Building

By Emily Frost | January 17, 2014 5:19pm
 The Trafalgar has requested curbside organics collection. 
Food Scraps Will Be Collected at One Upper West Side Building
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UPPER WEST SIDE — A local co-op building will be the first in the neighborhood to participate in the city's composting pick-up program, a resident confirmed. 

The Trafalgar, an 85-unit co-op building on West 99th Street, took the initiative to bring organics collection to the building, asking the Department of Sanitation to approve its plan. 

On the same day as its regular trash pick-up, the building will also put out plastic bins full of composting material, plastered with DOS stickers that will be picked up as well, said Trafalgar resident Mark Elliott.

Elliott's family had gotten into the habit of making the weekend pilgrimage to the Inwood or Morningside Heights' farmer's markets after they started composting all their fruit and vegetable scraps about a year ago, he said. 

Now, all that waste will be brought to the basement and deposited in the building's compost bins, "heavy walled 32+ gallon containers on wheels," according a document circulated to the building. 

Though Elliott said his family enjoyed the weekend trips, they were also an added responsibility.

"Our lives were kind of governed by how are we going to handle the compost. We had to make arrangements every weekend to get up there," he said of the family's trips. 

But getting the DOS to agree to stop at the building was "very easy," he said. The building had to make the initial request a few weeks ago, draft a plan and then have it approved.

Feb. 3 will be the first day of pick-up, he said.  

Curbside organic scrap pick-up has been piloted by the city in other neighborhoods in Brooklyn and is coming to Park Slope this spring. The city has said it will turn organic materials into fertilizer. 

The Department of Sanitation did not respond to a request for comment.