Calling All Gardens and Green Spaces:
Be part of the growing number of community gardens and greening groups moving fallen leaves from the garbage bin to the compost bin!
New York City will not collect residential leaves for composting this year. All leaves left at curbside will end up in out-of-state landfills. What a waste of a precious, nutrient-rich resource that can be used to make our community gardens bloom!
Picking up where the City leaves off, community gardeners and partners are accepting and composting leaves this fall. Your group is invited to join this citywide effort to reduce waste and enrich our soil.
NOTE: If your space can’t accept leaves but can offer storage space in the event of an overflow of interest (and leaves) from the community, we would love to hear from you!
From a meeting of Brooklyn gardeners and concerned residents to a growing citywide coalition, NYCLeaves aims to build sustainability from the ground up while advocating for municipal action. To get involved, email compost@nycleaves.org.
DETAILS:
Three weekends in November (7-8, 14-15 and 21-22, from 11am-1pm) are suggested for drop-off, but if your garden/space can only commit to one day or a different day entirely, that’s great too. Let us know what you can do and we’ll help publicize participating locations and dates by posting on the NYCLeaves website.
When you decide on dates, please email compost@nycleaves.org with the survey responses below, and your garden will be added to our map!
If your site can accept leaves, here’s what you will need to do:
1. Establish space to handle leaves.
2. Decide on dates to accept leaves and recruit volunteers to manage LeafDrop days. We recommend three volunteers each drop-off day, and suggest contacting CSA groups and other neighborhood associations for additional volunteers, if needed.
3. Reach out to your neighbors with fliers and emails inviting them to bring bagged, residential leaves (without twigs or trash) to your garden on drop-off days. (We’ll email you flyers as pdf to print by Nov 1.)
4. On LeafDrop days, weigh and/or count bags of leaves you take in – any regular bathroom scale will do – and collect basic info from residents. A simple survey will be posted on NYCLeaves.org.
5. Encourage residents dropping off leaves to contact their City Councilperson to bring back NYC’s leaf collection and composting program. Suggested info and flyers will also be posted on NYCLeaves.org.
What NYC Leaves can do to help you to do:
1. Connect you with volunteers and Master Composters.
2. Provide you with information on different leaf storage and composting options.
3. Supply you with contacts for compost literature and other important info for LeafDrop days.
4. Provide help with outreach, educational and composting assistance.
5. Help bring any bags of leaves you can’t process to other sites where they will be composted.
If your garden (or other greening group) would like to participate in the NYC Leaves Project and accept bagged, residential leaves, please copy the following mini-survey into an email for compost@nycleaves.org and send as soon as possible:
1. Garden/Organization Name
2. Neighborhood
3. Street Address (and zip)
4. Cross Streets
5. Contact Name
6. Contact email address
7. Contact day and/or evening phone
8. Our group will accept leaves on: .(please indicate which dates and times)
9. We can provide a table for composting information and information for contacting elected officials about municipal composting (very important) (yes/no)
10. We would like help getting volunteer(s) or Master Composters to help us on LeafDrop days (yes/no)
11. We will weigh leaves and keep a record of what we receive (also very important) (yes/no)
12. We would like to do this project, but need help and/or more information about composting) (if yes – please explain)
13. Does your group currently compost? (yes/no)
14. Do you/did you accept leaves from the neighborhood? (yes/no)
15. Number of compost bins:
16. Questions or problems you’ve had about composting in the past
17. How would you rate your current composting activities? (Very successful, good, fair, not successful)
18. DO YOU HAVE/KNOW OF A LOCATION THAT COULD TAKE AND USE LARGE AMOUNTS OF LEAVES? PLEASE LET US KNOW. ALL SUGGESTIONS WELCOME.