Where To Drop Your Compostable Waste In Ditmas Park, Summer 2016
There are many reasons to compost this summer. For one, it reduces a tremendous amount of reusable waste. Compostable trash items — like food scraps — make up almost one-third of New York City’s residential waste stream. Instead of rotting in a landfill, we could transform these scraps into nutrient-rich soil for local gardens and farms.
In addition, food scraps decompose in your garbage can, attracting swarms of bugs and odors. When I began collecting food scraps for composing, keeping the kitchen clean in the summer became a lot easier.
There are many places to drop off compostable waste in Ditmas Park, Kensington, and Windsor Terrace.
All of these locations accept residential food scraps only — which includes fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags (remove the staple), egg and nut shells, pits, non-greasy grains (bread, pasta and cereal), potting soil and cut flowers; but no dairy, meat, bones, fats or oils, woody material, litter, lawn clippings, “compostable” dinnerware, coconut shells, or charcoal.
How to prepare your scraps for compost piles: For best composting, remove all labels and rubber bands, and chop scraps into one to two inch pieces. Collect your scraps in containers in the freezer, and bring them to one of these locations during drop-off hours:
Q Gardens
East 18th Street between Church Ave and Caton Ave
Q Gardens is a community garden and farm, transformed from an abandoned lot by neighbors in the Flatbush area. Visit the Q Gardens Facebook page for upcoming events and free workshops, or email qgardens@gmail.com to volunteer.
Summer open compost hours: April through October, Wednesdays 6:30pm to 8:30pm, Saturdays 12pm to 2pm, and Sundays 2pm to 4pm.
Compost for Brooklyn
Corner of Newkirk Avenue and East 8th Street
In the spring, Compost for Brooklyn is open alternating Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. They will be updating their summer hours shortly, stay tuned for updates on this page and on their website.
GrowNYC at Cortelyou Greenmarket
Rugby Road just off Cortelyou Road
Compost at the weekly greenmarket, Sundays 8am to 1pm year-round unless otherwise noted. The market is open until 3pm, but compost collection stops at 1pm. Other neighboring GrowNYC compost markets include: Bartel-Pritchard Square (Windsor Terrace) at 15th Street and Prospect Park West; and Boro Park Greenmarket at 14th Ave btwn 49th and 50th Streets.
East 4th Street Community Garden (Kensington)
179 East 4th street between Fort Hamilton Parkway and Caton Avenue
Open compost hours: April through October, Wednesdays 4pm to 6pm; Saturdays 9am to 1pm; Sundays 10am to 2pm; and whenever the gate is open! Walk the garden path to the back and use compost bins next to the fountain.
Prospect Farm (Windsor Terrace)
1194 Prospect Avenue, between 18th Street and Prospect Park Southwest
Open compost hour: One hour on Saturdays, between 11am and 12pm. It may seem like a short limit, but in 2015 Prospect Farm collected 4,855 pounds of food scraps from neighbors and 2 local businesses — which turned into 2,100 pounds of finished compost to use in garden beds.
More interested in making your own compost? Check out our guide to composting in a bin.
[Additional reporting by Mary Bakija]