CBS2 goes inside NYC's massive compost facility on Staten Island
NEW YORK -- More compost bins are coming to New York City streets.
Those food scraps then head to a compost facility on Staten Island.
CBS2's Elijah Westbrook took a tour of the site to learn how some waste gets processed the moment it leaves your home and then comes back in other ways.
"What we do here is receive organic waste and turn it into usable black gold," says a video message from the mayor's office.
Maybe not the gold we typically think of, but much of the reusable dirt you'll see there most likely was your meal from the day before. How about those papers you recently shredded, or the grass you're about to cut in the summer months?
"Here those food scraps and that yard waste, which would otherwise sit in landfill for decades producing methane, is turned into soil at this facility," said New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
That so-called waste gets turned into usable material that's broken into two categories: Landscaping and food waste.
The city's Sanitation Department said from 2017 to 2021, it processed more than 104,000 cubic yards of dirt and 882,000 pounds of organic food waste.
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All of it gets processed through a machine called a "tiger," which separates material that's able to be composted. It's then compacted into walls towering as much as 10 feet, where they sit for weeks if not months at a time.
"I really look at the landfill as New York City's past, and the composting facility that we're in now and it's eminent expansion as the city's future," said Tisch.
The city said it's bagging more than 143,000 cubic yards of the soil to schools, community gardens, homes and other places.