Leaf Composting @ McCarren Park Next Two Saturdays

A note from our friends at the North Brooklyn Compost Project:

Year round, you, the fabulous members of the compost project, work hard to reduce the amount of trash produced in our neighborhood. You know that composting your food scraps is a great alternative to out-of-state garbage export and a simple way to improve the health of our neighborhood. Please help us take that message to your landlords, neighbors, and home owning friends and acquaintances.

NBCP is taking part in NYCLeaves: Project Leaf Drop a rocking effort to collect leaves from residential properties and turn them into valuable mulch. For the next two Saturdays, we are going to be accepting leaf donations from your yards and raking up more leaves in McCarren Park.

The fine print:

What do we accept: Leaves - leaves only, no twigs, branches or other yard debris

How: Bagged in paper bags, if possible, but we'll take clear and black trash bags, too

Where: At the compost site - McCarren Park at North 12th and Driggs

When: Saturdays, 11/7, 11/14 and 11/21 between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm.

What else: Volunteers! Come out to help rake, bag, collect and jump into leaf piles
If you are planning to join us, drop a line at northbrooklyncompost@gmail.com

Gentlemen (and Ladies), start your composting

If you're like me, you've been dropping your banana peels and carrot ends in a bucket and taking it to the North Brooklyn Compost Project in McCarren Park. They could use some help this weekend getting ready to open up, so check them out and support them on "In Our BackYard" (ioby.org)!

Do the Worm on Día De Los Muertos!

= Awesome?

Join us in attending the North Brooklyn Compost Project's Day of the Dead Worm bin Workshop this Saturday, 12:30 pm at the McCarren Park Greenmarket!

The site that we've brought our compostable items all summer will be closing for the season after Thanksgiving, but you can keep on composting indoors with red wiggler worms! Come learn how it works and sign up for a $40 kit (a bin plus one pound of worms).

Learn How to Make a Worm Bin!

And, if you're a teacher, learn how to teach your kids how to make a worm bin (although it is open for non-teachers as well). This Wednesday 5-7pm at Habana Outpost, hosted by the North Brooklyn Compost Project's Kate Zidar.

Fundraise for Compost!

Our friends at the compost project are throwing a fundraiser!

Please join us for a composting fundraiser event. Learn how to lower your urban-eco footprint, meet other folks in the community interested in composting, join our raffle to win prizes, bid on items for the silent auction, and help us raise funds for the expansion of the North Brooklyn Compost Project while eating snacks and toasting to our worms with a glass of sangria. $10 suggested donation at the door. Our guest speakers include No Impact Man; Colin Beavan, and the North Brooklyn Compost Masters; Kate Zidar, Griffin Thomas, & Natasha Heflin. Raffle prizes and silent auction items are donated by: Urban Rustic, Brooklyn Kitchen, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Council on the Environment of NYC, Lodge Restaurant, Habana Outpost, Sprout Home, Ronnybrook, 3r Living, Penny Licks, and Word Books Stationary Kid's Stuff.

Tuesday, September 30, 6:30PM Urban Rustic, 236 N. 12th Street, Brooklyn

The McCarren Park Compost Project

Ever since local activist Kate Zidar (pictured below at left) made me wake up early one May morning to help sift through some compost that sat through the winter--far less gross than it sounds--I have been saving my banana peels, eggshells, and other organic plant waste in a small trash can next to the sink. Every Saturday, I stop by the fenced off area across from the Orthodox Church on North 12th Street, put my "greens" in a digester and add a healthy dose of "browns" (also far less gross than it sounds) from a pile of leaves and twigs. Since I started doing this, my non-recyclable trash has been cut in half.


Let's let Jo Micek (pictured above at right), a Compost Project stalwart volunteer, tell the rest:

The North Brooklyn Compost Project came to life thanks to Master Composter Kate Zidar and her love of all things green, brown and wormy. The site is located on the corner of North 12th and Driggs Streets, on the southeast border of McCarren Park, between the dog run and the Green Dome Garden. It collects food scraps (all fruit and vegetable peelings and pits; rice pasta, bread, and cereal; coffee grounds with filter and teabags; and egg shells--nothing meaty, fishy or greasy) and turns them into a rich, nutritious, and delicious-smelling soil, greatly reducing the amount of household waste that is burned and/or dumped in landfills.

The Project is a 100% volunteer effort, made possible by a small group of Greenpoint/Williamsburg residents who spend few hours each week turning over compost, spying on worms, and talking about issues like sustainability and reducing the municipal waste stream. It is always in need of volunteers and donations of supplies and skills (artistic, organizational, fundraising).

Please stop by any Saturday between 9 am and 12 pm to drop off your kitchen scraps, say hello to the project members, and ask any and all composting questions. You can also contact the project at gdgcompost [at] gmail -dot- com.

Above: Another satisfied participant

Hot Composting Tips
Make sure the bag you use to collect greens in does not have holes (learned the hard way)
If you add coffee grinds or tea bags, squeeze them out first- this reduces the amount of liquid that gathers in your bag (also learned the hard way)
If you have the time, cut your stuff into small pieces- it helps make the compost decompose quicker
Compostable goods can smell after a little more than a week, so try to drop it off every week
If you have a big enough freezer, you can hold your "greens" in there and take it all at once and not worry about the smell