Ursula Kaczmarek estimates that about 90% of her diet comes from garbage.
44-year-old Kaczmarek is one of the few dumpster divers, freegans, who have developed an intimate sense of edible food that local bodegas and grocery stores throw away in her Brooklyn.
He is a data scientist by day, hunts through garbage cans by night, and shines a flashlight into garbage bags, which he carefully ties.
He sometimes finds, like last Thursday at The CITY, wrapped salads in plastic shells, loose grapes and strawberries, bouquets of flowers, ripe avocados, cartons of yogurt, fresh bagels, whole heads of cauliflower, and unopened bottles of hot sauce.
She brings rewards from her home or to community fridges.
“When I first did it out of curiosity, I reacted very emotionally to the sight of perfect food in the garbage can. I don’t think anyone is okay with waste, so when you see it, it annoys me a lot, ”said Kaczmarek. “I can’t stop this waste machinery, but I can do it.”
One man’s rubbish is Urszula Kaczmarek’s treasure. Dumpster diving on July 7, 2022.
He thinks of this action as an intervention to prevent edible food from being thrown in a landfill or incinerated – both of which are harmful to the environment – and wishes more places in the city to donate their food or compost.
The city intends to reinstate fines to encourage companies to do more to reduce food waste.
Under Bloomberg-era law, several food companies – including supermarkets, restaurants, caterers, hotels and coffee shops above a certain area – have long required organic waste segregation and ensuring it is composted or otherwise digested for useful use.
But it is not clear how often this happens. Kaczmarek and other dumpster divers know firsthand how separating organic material is rarely practiced by restaurants and grocery stores (although many of the dumpster sites on her dive route are not large enough to apply commercial composting rules to them).
According to data obtained by the CITY, the Sanitary Department has not issued any infringements to non-compliant companies since the pandemic.
The garbage collection agency says it will begin re-imposing penalties – $ 250 to $ 1,000 fines – on July 31 to establishments that serve or prepare food but do not legally segregate their organic waste.
It remains to be seen whether the DSNY will actually enforce this law – and many questions arise as to whether the places it applies to are gearing up or even aware of the changes. Some of the business owners that THE CITY spoke to were unaware of this issue.
But for stores, hotels, and other businesses that already have systems in place, they and waste disposal experts say green product law is an opportunity to significantly tackle food waste and reform sustainable practices.
Vincent Gragnani, a spokesman for DSNY, confirmed in an e-mail that the enforcement was resumed “for companies already covered by the law and for those newly covered by the law.”
He noted that inspectors will be visiting companies again, and the department is running “wide ranging” before that happens.
Valuable Waste
As New York waits for a citywide housing composting program, zero waste experts and advocates see the Commercial Organic Products Act a source of hope. This may interest you : To Continually Improve Health Equality for New Yorkers Living With and At Risk Of Hiv, State Department Of Health Announces New Solicitation Request (RFA).
DSNY estimates that about 35% of the city’s commercial organic waste – including food scraps, dirty paper, and plants – may be diverted if companies follow the rules. This means that companies have to hire the service of collecting the organic matter separately for composting into the soil or “digestion” to produce biogas and fertilizer.
If organic material is left in ordinary trash and sent to landfills, it releases methane into the air, a gas that heats the planet strongly.
GrowNYC Composting Plant at Union Square Park. April 22, 2022
Mayor Eric Adams’s Food Forward NYC plan, released in February, called for 90% of organic waste collection by 2030 and cited commercial organic recycling as key to this goal.
In 2013, the City Council estimated that the law would affect 5% of restaurants in the city and capture 30% of the waste produced by all eateries throughout the city.
Entrepreneurs were subject to the law in stages: In July 2016, individual hotels, stadiums, arenas as well as large food wholesalers and manufacturers were brought in. Two years later, some grocery stores and more restaurants had to adapt to it. In July 2020, the list expanded to include some smaller restaurants, deli, coffee shops, and coffee shops.
Citing the coronavirus pandemic, the city has not imposed any fines on traders for complying with the requirements for two years.
Ushma Pandya Mehta, co-founder and partner of waste management consulting firm Think Zero, works with local companies to learn how to implement organic segregation and recycling – and informs many of her clients about their legal obligations.
“Although DSNY did not impose a fine, no one was doing anything urgent about it,” said Mehta, adding that often when companies hear about requirements, they are interested in complying with them from a corporate responsibility perspective.
“There is a lot of operational logistics, but I think the first obstacle is being aware of the rules and giving facility managers the comfort of what it means to separate organic products,” said Mehta. “I can tell the manager what needs to happen, but it has to go down to the bus boys, line cooks and cooks.”
In February 2019, DSNY hit 1 Brooklyn Bridge Hotel, located in Brooklyn Bridge Park, with a $ 1,000 fine for not recycling organic materials.
Corinne Hanson, director of sustainability and impact at SH Hotels & amp; Resorts, which runs the hotel, was unaware of the details of the breach, but said the hotel had “tons of problems” with the local fermenter that processed organic waste before it started operating about a year ago.
The hotel has since hired a company to transport leftover food instead of processing it on site, Hanson said. She added that the hotel redirected 88% of its waste in June between recycling and green programs, and is on track to divert 90% this month.
The hotel already sends used oyster shells to the Billion Oyster Project and uses some food scraps, such as coffee grounds, to make shrubs and cocktail syrups. Hanson said the hotel also plans to partner with Peat, a New York-based startup that collects food waste from restaurants and hotels and uses it to grow mushrooms.
First Step: Awareness
DSNY said it has held an extended warning period to inform business owners of what they need to do – a welcome move as they grapple with other matters. Read also : Food banks need state assistance.
“We are pleased that the Sanitation Department is focusing on education and compliance first and issuing restaurant violations and fines only as a last resort, and we will continue to encourage them to do so,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of NYC Hospitality Alliance, a restaurant umbrella group.
Christina Mitchell Grace, CEO and founder of the zero-waste consulting company Foodprint Group, said she had a feeling that many companies still don’t know they need to separate their organic products.
“There really is a lack of awareness as people keep their heads down, especially in hospitality, and have been hit so hard by COVID that they need the city screaming from rooftops that this is the law and that it is important and that organics cannot be thrown into rubbish, ”said Grace, whose company works with 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge.
The sanitation truck departs from a warehouse in southern Brooklyn on March 3, 2021.
A manager at a Key Food grocery store in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn – a stop on the Kaczmarka route – said he hadn’t heard of the organic separation requirements until the CITY asked. There is no separate bin for food waste in the store.
“Recycling and garbage are separate… foods that we combine with garbage,” front manager Luis Polanco said, referring to products that are not sold. He recently started giving extra food from a hot bar in a market to some volunteers who bring it to a community refrigerator at Fort Greene.
An important aspect of organic waste management is the reduction of sources, which DSNY has encouraged companies to do by reducing over-procurement, avoiding overproduction, and training staff to increase efficiency.
This is what Kaczmarek would like to see more.
“A lot of these things shouldn’t have been produced in the first place,” she said.
“I think citizens can play a role as well,” said Anna Sacks, a regular trash trawler and chair of Manhattan’s Solid Waste Advisory Board, suggesting New Yorkers are being paid to track down organic recycling violations. “I think crowdsourcing is a way to enforce it.”
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How can students reduce their carbon footprint?
Tips for reducing your carbon footprint in college To see also : 5 tips for a healthy lifestyle shared by renowned nutritionist Dr. Siddhant Bhargava in his new podcast.
- Choose the Scenic Route: Walking is about more than just reducing your carbon footprint! …
- Get a large, cozy rug: …
- Wrap yourself in a warm duvet: …
- Switch to laptop: …
- Avoid disposable items: …
- Reduce your dairy and meat consumption: …
- Buy sparingly:
How can teenagers reduce their carbon footprint? Drive less. We can all find ways to reduce our individual carbon footprint, and one of the greatest ways is to use our cars less. So instead of going by car or asking for a lift somewhere, you can walk, ride a bike or use Martha.
How can we reuse waste at home?
Pack your lunches in a reusable bag with reusable food and drink containers. Re-use containers and other materials for storage and crafts. Reuse single-sided pages with scratch-off paper. Find new homes for clothes and bedding, or use them for rags, patchwork, and more.
How can the waste be reused on the example? Solid waste is reusable waste that can be recycled or used for other purposes, such as bottles, jars and carry bags that can be reused for the production of decorative pots, boxes for stationery and much more, and reuse bags provided by the market helps to reduce pollution by plastic waste.
Why should we reduce food waste?
The healthy food that is currently being wasted can help feed families in need. Safe and healthy food that is currently thrown away can help feed hungry people and reduce food insecurity today. Each year, Feeding America and its network of food banks save around £ 3.6 billion of food.
Should we reduce food waste? Simply put, reducing food losses and wastage will have many benefits and can result in: increased availability of food for the most vulnerable people. reducing greenhouse gas emissions. reduced pressure on land and water resources.
Why is it important that we reduce food waste?
Reducing food waste is important to the environment as it keeps food out of landfills. This makes economic sense on a small scale by reducing food bills for households, and on a large scale by reducing disposal costs for restaurants, processors and farmers.
