New Yorkers will soon lose compost collection sites at the city’s greenmarkets as a result of Mayor Eric Adams’ budget cuts, employees of the nonprofit GrowNYC said on Wednesday.
At a rally outside City Hall, staff from the organization — which runs food scrap collection tents at more than 50 farmer’s markets and farm stands around the city — said that all 53 of GrowNYC’s composting employees expect to be laid off by Dec. 18.
That means the orange GrowNYC composting tents that are a familiar sight at markets citywide will make their last appearances from Dec. 13-17, according to Nick Rolf, one of the group’s directors.
The cuts, which Adams announced last month, have forced the sanitation department to slash its $1.87 billion annual budget by 5%, including $3 million allocated this fiscal year for organizations like GrowNYC and Big Reuse to run community composting programs. Advocates said the cuts will lead to the loss of more than 100 jobs across all the organizations affected.
“Losing your job is devastating any time of year. But to think that the week before the holidays, we’re all going to be unemployed, it’s just unfathomable and unacceptable,” said Lena Frey, a GrowNYC compost coordinator who has worked at the McCarren Park greenmarket for more than three years. GrowNYC’s management did not comment on the layoffs.
The mayor last month said the budget cuts were necessary because the city expects to spend $6 billion on care for migrants over the next two years.
Joshua Goodman, a sanitation department spokesperson, said the funding cuts represent about 10% of the city’s total compost budget. In a statement, he said that the department’s universal curbside collection program will reduce the need for community compost programs, which he said are only used by the “truest of true believers.”
The hit to the compost programs undermines the city’s goals of tackling climate change, said Justin Green, executive director of Big Reuse.
“Community…
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