Sanchez questions Anderson on organic waste travel distance and transfer process

So I want to talk briefly about Enter 369.

On average, what is the distance that organic waste must travel from New York City residents before it is anaerobically digested?

And can you describe each of the waste transfers involved in this travel?

Sure, I'll start off and then hand it over to Deputy Commissioner McDonald to talk about all of the specific facilities that we use.

But in general, waste doesn't actually travel that far to be either composted or

process through anaerobic digestion.

We have a number of facilities in New York City that receive that material.

We have facilities in New Jersey that receive that material.

And then they're transferring it on to generally either the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant or a wastewater treatment plant that co-digests the material in New Jersey.

So Jen can speak to the specifics of that.

Yes, thank you, Commissioner and Chair Sanchez.

The department issued a procurement in 2023 to secure additional capacity for the receipt, processing, and beneficial use

of all the organics collected by DSNY and also those generated by agencies and institutions that we collaborate with, such as the schools and parks.

So as a result of that procurement, we awarded eight contracts.

Seven of those contracts have been activated, and they are associated with a variety of transfer stations located throughout the city.

So that does minimize the travel distance.

Once the trucks collect the organic material, it goes to a transfer station.

One of those, it's actually eight locations.

Seven of them are transfer stations, and one is the Staten Island Compost Facility that we've spoken about today.

So we have direct deliveries of collected material from Staten Island and South Brooklyn that go to that facility.

So overall, citywide, we have a robust network of locations that minimizes the distance that trucks have to travel after collecting organics.

Once the material is received at the transfer stations, it is sometimes separated by subtype.

So, for example, we have a very convenient and efficient program whereby we collect food waste and yard waste together at the curb.

So at some of the transfer stations, they separate the material into piles of yard waste and food waste so that they can process them differentially.

Sometimes the woody yard waste will go to composting and the organics, the wetter, heavier food waste to co-digestion.

So it really depends on the transfer station and then from there it will go to compost facilities and or digesters for the beneficial use processing part of the resource recovery pathway.

Awesome.

Thank you for that.