Domingo Morales (Compost Power) on NYCHA composting and Intros 369, 356
Domingo Morales of Compost Power, operating eight compost sites on public housing campuses, supports Intro 369 for local composting capacity and Intro 356 for financial sustainability. He describes a hyperlocal model of collecting, processing, and distributing compost on NYCHA campuses for free food and education.
Domingo, you can begin.
Thank you for having me.
I'm Domingo Morales from Compost Power.
We operate eight compost sites on public housing campuses throughout the city.
And I'm here to support Intro 369.
I think it would behoove New York City to have more local compost in New York.
I think the seven transfer stations that we do have, it's like a double route where we have to take it to a transfer station, emulsify it, turn it to a liquid form, and then take it to a water treatment plant.
And that just doubles the amount of trucking that we need.
Also, there's a lot of biosolids that end up in landfill anyway.
I think with the compost.
Sites that we have in New York City, we're able to keep a hyperlocal model, like at our public housing campuses, we're able to collect the waste on campus, process it on campus, distribute the compost on campus, grow free food for
residents, provide environmental education for young adults, as well as the kids who attend the local schools in the community, and even in some cases, seniors are coming out to sift through finished compost and use their finished compost on their gardening efforts.
I think public housing has the second largest tree canopy in New York City, so it's beneficial to have local processing sites on public housing.
And I think with Intro 369, Department of Sanitation can't do it by themselves.
So they'll need to tap into other community composting support networks.
They'll need to partner with New York City Housing Authority.
They'll need to partner with Parks Department in order to get the space to build these composting sites that we need.
So it will provide a more holistic approach to organic waste in New York City, and it will provide more of a community tapped in.
So I'm in support for that bill.
I also think Intro 356, we're in support for that as well because those are rules that were in place when Department of Sanitation controlled the New York City Compost Project.
They no longer fund the New York City Compost Project.
We now have the New York City Community Compost Network that's funded by City Council.
And I think if we allow people to explore different options for funding, we'll be able to make community compost a little bit more sustainable.
Thank you so much for your testimony.