Everyone should be able to compost their household food scraps.  But with the end of NYC Sanitation's compost pick-up, where can people turn? The East 4th Street community garden has been an oasis in a composting desert.  To respond to the community's composting needs, we plan to rebuild and expand our composting area by creating attractive, durable bins to replace our aging, overloaded system. Now, with your help meeting this dollar for dollar match will allow us to serve the community's composting needs.

As a compost drop-off site listed by NYC Sanitation, 100s of "depositors" already come from far and wide to drop off to us. We estimate that we have at least 150 composters dropping by on at least a biweekly basis and interest grows by the month. Despite limited hours due to COVID-19, enthusiasm remains high: at current rates we estimate we will compost over 3 tons of material annually.  Depositors who are first timers not only recycle their organic waste, but some return to the garden as guests to enjoy the beauty and solace, some join as members and others attend our public events. Everyone is welcome to take finished compost for their own greening projects. We offer composting to residents from all over Brooklyn, particularly those who can walk or bike to us from among the most diverse census tracts in the nation.  We will use our existing outreach channels, conducted in languages including Spanish, Bengali and Urdu, to attract new composters.  We also plan to have educational material on site appropriate to educating children about composting.