Each month, we will highlight community heroes that are making a difference in their communities and working to make their local environments cleaner and healthier.
This month, we are taking a look at Earth Matter in NY!
Earth Matter NY is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the art, science, and application of composting in and around New York City. Earth Matter NY accepts and processes food waste generated by NYC residents. Through a partnership with The Trust for Governors Island, we process all of the landscape waste and food waste generated by Island partners and visitors. The Biobag team connected with Andrea Lieske to tell us more about the organization. Read their responses below.
What led you to start your composting operation?
Earth Matter was conceived in spring 2009 to address the dual problems of resource recovery and healthy soils with a single solution: promoting the local composting of organic waste into a healthy soil amendment.
The three founding directors of Earth Matter, Marisa DeDominicis, Kendall Morrison, and Charlie Bayrer, bring together many years of experience in urban community greening. They first combined efforts in the Brooklyn-Queens Land Trust (BQLT) healthy soils initiative (2007 to 2008).
This project evaluated soil health in 34 community gardens and promoted remediation by organic amendment. Concurrently, they were involved in organizing the Fort Greene Compost Project (2005-present), a community-based, volunteer-led effort to capture residential food waste for composting in local community gardens.
Who do you serve and how can people get in touch with you if they want to start composting?
We serve NYers primarily, but are always happy to be a resource to anyone. Contact us at [email protected]
How much organic material do you typically take in on a weekly basis?
Last year, we processed an average of 13 tons/week.
Feel free to add any additional information about your operation as you see fit.
Visit us Sat and Sun, 12pm-4pm, May - Oct! We have 40+ chickens!
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