Most of the food scraps and yard waste collected by the city isn’t getting composted. Instead, it’s being turned into fuel to heat people’s homes—and that’s not actually great for the environment, climate advocates say. 

New Yorkers might be surprised to learn that only 20 percent of the food scraps and yard waste that the city collects from the curb is actually turned into compost, according to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY).

But a bill introduced this spring, and the subject of a City Council hearing on Monday, would change that by requiring DSNY to establish at least one organic waste composting facility in each borough between 2026 and 2027.

“The goal is to generate more compost for local use,” Councilmember Sandy Nurse, the bill’s sponsor, told City Limits. “Compost is an important input for our local ecosystem. And producing that locally and using it locally is beneficial to the environment.” 

More than a third of the city’s waste—36 percent—is suitable for composting, which turns food scraps and yard waste into a dark, nutrient-rich soil that can be used to fertilize plants.

That’s good for the environment, since organic waste that’s thrown into a landfill gets suffocated by trash and as it decomposes, releases greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. Mayor Eric Adams says he is committed to diverting all organic garbage away from landfills by 2030, and sorting of this waste will become mandatory citywide this fall. 

But right now, 80 percent of the food scraps and yard waste collected is being fed to wastewater treatment plants, where the organic material is broken down through a process called anaerobic digestion. A biogas, primarily methane, is extracted from the digested material and turned into energy to heat businesses and homes.

While converting organic waste into energy is a better alternative to throwing it in a landfill, environmentalists say it’s not without pitfalls. 

The scarps-to-fuel approach emits its own share of greenhouse gasses, and the process has the potential to leak methane into the atmosphere. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.

Another issue is that once the methane has been extracted, a leftover sludge known as “digestate” ends up getting thrown into the landfill anyway. 

“The digestate is being landfilled because the organic waste is mixed with sewage waste during the process, and it becomes so contaminated that it loses the quality it needs to turn into finished compost that can be applied to agriculture,” said Eric Goldstein, New York City environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“From an environmental and sustainability standpoint, the best approach is to compost that organic waste and return it to soil where it can serve as a soil enhancer,” he explained.

Goldstein calls Nurse’s bill to boost the city’s composting capacity “the most important piece of solid waste legislation that the City Council will be considering this year.”

New York City is currently home to two facilities that can process food waste for both composting and anaerobic digestion; one is located on Staten Island and the other in Brooklyn. DSNY does note, however, that it is looking to diversify where the city’s organic material goes, and have an active procurement for vendors that has the potential to change the number of facilities churning out compost.

Nurse told City Limits that the goal of her bill is to encourage the build out of sites solely dedicated to composting—smaller alternatives to the high-tech and expensive facilities currently processing both aerobic digestion and compost.

But the Department of Sanitation begs to differ. It will still cost billions of dollars to build these facilities, which will take up a lot of space, the agency said at a Council hearing on Monday. 

DSNY also took issue with the proposed timeline, saying it doesn’t give the city enough time for the massive undertaking, and with the fact that the bill excludes aerobic digestion, which officials argued is a better option than throwing organic materials away.

“We need to accept that the goal is getting this waste out of landfills,” DSNY Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the hearing.

“New York City already produces more compost than we can give away, and reducing our need for fracked gas by producing renewable energy from food waste is also a noble goal and a substantial win for the environment,” she added.

Still, environmental advocates say they will be backing the bill, especially since the Adams administration has defunded the city’s community composting program—neighborhood sites where residents could drop off food scraps. The move has caused national uproar among the environmental community, since it was considered among the most successful community-run composting programs in the nation.

“Compost is a valuable resource that can be used to nourish the depleted soil of local parks, community gardens and street trees and the over 12,000 rain gardens the city has created as part of its climate resiliency plan,” said Jane Selden, chair of the committee on waste reduction at the environmental group 350 NYC. 

These rain gardens, Selden explained, are important for flood mitigation because they act as a sponge, soaking up to six times their weight in water when it rains, keeping it away from the city’s streets (and after, its sewers and waterways). 

“Local composting plays a vital role in moving our city closer to achieving its greenhouse gas reduction and infrastructure resiliency goals,” she underscored.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

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Every year, it’s the same old story. Julian Loscalzo announces this could be it — his final summer bus trip leading tour groups to America’s iconic ballparks, majors and minors, a feat he’s been pulling off for 42 years running, with the single exception of a pandemic year.

And every year, Loscalzo — a former stadium beer vendor, sometime bike-taxi manager and lobbyist at the State Capitol for the St. Paul Saints, nonprofits and other groups — fails out of retirement. But at the age of 72, he may mean it this time.

Julian Loscalzo laughs as he welcomes a member of the Bleacher Bums baseball park tour group as they check in to board the bus at the Midway Target in St. Paul on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

An Alaska Bus Lines coach bus he’s rented for the occasion picked up 44 baseball fans at the Midway Target parking lot on Tuesday morning and took them to Beloit, Wis. — go Beloit Sky Carp! — for the Tuesday night game against the Lake County Captains.

Then it’s off to Chicago, where the White Sox meet the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Wednesday. And then it’s the Red Sox versus the White Sox on Thursday on Chicago’s south side, at Guaranteed Rate Field, the former home of Comiskey Park.

Then it’s back to Wisconsin on Friday to watch the Quad City River Bandits take on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers at Neuroscience Group Field in Appleton. Yes, there will be fireworks — literal ones.

A love of urban travel

Loscalzo, who has made his home in St. Paul since the mid-1970s, has promised his tour group they’ll roll back into St. Paul’s Midway next weekend. But his sights are already set on his next ballpark tour to Syracuse, Cooperstown and Utica, N.Y., in July.

“We seldom stay out in the suburbs unless we’re on a tight schedule,” said Loscalzo, who has turned his love of urban travel into a side gig across four decades of ballpark hopping, much but not all of it concentrated in the Midwest. “We stayed in downtown Wichita last year. Same with Tulsa. It’s as much a chance to explore the city as the baseball.”

Every other year, he goes big before he goes home, wrangling a few dozen tour-goers on an eight-day tour. About a third of his entourage are retired folks. Most are repeat customers. Sometimes they bring with them their kids or grandkids, who get to experience the family road trip with a baseball family writ large.

He recalls a tour that drew three generations of the same clan. He brought his own grandson with him two years ago to Cooperstown. Travel friendships form. Sometimes they last.

Rolling out for Beloit, Wis.

When Joel Hanson’s aunt died in February, a number of the friends he made over four years of ballpark tours attended the funeral. On Tuesday, he was scheduled to roll out for Benoit with his 73-year-old father and his 42-year-old brother, who would be joining him for the first time.

“My dad’s from Chicago and he used to skip school and go to opening day at Wrigley Field,” said Hanson, 34, of West St. Paul, one of the younger individuals on recent trips. “His mother would write him a note: ‘Please excuse Billy from class as he’s sick today.’”

Of course, not every ballpark is a Wrigley Field.

“We’re tending to see probably twice as many minor league ballparks as major leagues,” Loscalzo said. “They’re as fun. They’re more fun. They’re different, but I think we get more enjoyment out of it because it’s more like Americana. You get to hang out with the players, you get to meet people. They’re always intrigued by a bus load of Minnesotans. If you have a kid with you, the kid gets to throw out the first pitch. People kind of take you under their wing.”

John Reay has been going on Loscalzo’s ballpark tours almost annually since they launched in the early 1980s. He doesn’t consider himself a baseball super-fan as much as a fan of the community that forms on the road. What started out as a bit of a men’s outing has become almost equally co-ed.

“It’s the friendships. It’s the sitting on the bus for seven or eight hours to Chicago. These are friends I get to see every year,” said Reay, 79, of St. Paul. “You come back and you start up right where you left off.”

Julian Loscalzo shows the schedule for the Bleacher Bums baseball park tour group as they check in to board the bus at the Midway Target in St. Paul on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Why ballparks?

So why the fixation on ballparks?

Loscalzo, who grew up in working class Philadelphia, one of the only kids in his neighborhood to go to college, lost his father when he was just three months old. His mother poured her love of baseball into him from a young age, but it would take him 20 years or more to make the connection — America’s pastime was her link to her late husband, and an emblem of dad that she could pass on to her son.

He remembers trips to long-gone Connie Mack Stadium in old Shibe Park, and the nosedive the Philadelphia Phillies took in 1964, the year their 10-game losing streak cost them the pennant they had opened the season seemingly destined to win. His mother took him to Game One of that 10-game slide. Yes, baseball can be a game that breaks your heart.

“It does, it does, it does! But it’s a game of people,” Loscalzo said. “It’s a game of history.”

Some of those repeat customers on his ballpark tours are no longer with us. At 72, Loscalzo takes a close read when he learns that a celebrity or local notable his age has passed away. Nothing lasts forever, maybe not even America’s favorite pastime, which has lost ground in popular culture to football and basketball.

So after this summer, he’s hanging up his baseball tour hat for good.

Or maybe not.

“It’s been a tongue-and-cheek statement to people,” Loscalzo said. “It’s kind of a reminder that everyday could be your last.”

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Alex Morgan and Rose Lavelle headlined the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s starting lineup in Tuesday’s friendly against South Korea at Allianz Field. Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson were the super-charged subs off the bench — and that trio combined for a second-half goal.

But with head coach Emma Hayes starting her new era, it was 16-year-old debutant Lily Johannes who sealed the 3-0 win with a goal in the 82nd minute.

A rainbow of colorful ponchos among the announced 19,169 fans on a rainy night rose out of their seats at salute the most unlikely of goal scorers. The midfielder from Virginia and Dutch club Ajax is the third-youngest goalscorer in U.S. history.

The USWNT improved its still-perfect stretch in St. Paul. The Americans are 6-0 at Allianz Field since 2019, including a 23-0 goal differential.

South Korea defender Lee Young-ju, center, and U.S. midfielder Rose Lavelle, right, vie for possession of the ball during the first half of an international friendly soccer match in St. Paul, Minn., Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

The U.S. easily worked its way through the South Korea defense in the 13th minute. Morgan was allowed to saunter down the middle of the field, and she laid it off to Jenna Nighswonger. Then Crystal Dunn beat everyone to Nighswonger’s cross at the back post for a goal.

Smith doubled the lead in the 68th minute with a tight-angle finish. The set-up came from a long dribble from Trinity Rodman and back heal from Mallory Swanson.

Those three nearly combed for another goal in the 71st minute, but Rodman’s pass was a bit too far in front of Swanson at the goal line.

It will still be tough for Johannsen to make Hayes’ 18-player squad for the Olympics. The U.S. opens the Summer Games with a match against Zambia on July 25 in Nice, France.

Briefly

Minnesota United head coach Eric Ramsay couldn’t make it to USWNT match at Allianz Field. He is at home on daddy duty with two young children. But his wife Sioned was planning to be at the game in St. Paul. Ramsay talked Tuesday about his connections with Hayes and others from when they overlapped at Chelsea. … Rose Lavelle, 29, made her 100th appearance for the U.S. on Tuesday.  … Loons forward Teemu Pukki, who hasn’t scored in MLS play since March 9, logged two goals for Finland in an 4-2 exhibition loss to Portugal in Lisbon on Tuesday. … MNUFC winger Sang Bin Jeong was in attendance to support his fellow South Koreans. Jeong, 22, has yet to receive a senior national team call-up.