The City Council passed a bill on Thursday requiring New Yorkers to separate their food waste from regular trash, with mandatory composting coming to all five boroughs by next year.

The City Council passed a bill on Thursday requiring New Yorkers to separate their food waste from regular trash, with mandatory composting coming to all five boroughs by next year.

The residential mandate will roll out borough by borough, starting with Brooklyn and Queens this October, followed by the Bronx and Staten Island in March 2024, and Manhattan that October.

The goal is to reduce the amount of organic waste the city sends to landfills, where it produces a particularly potent greenhouse gas called methane.****

  •  Kamirose   ( @Kamirose@beehaw.org ) English
    5•1 year ago

    Correct, aerobic decomposition does not produce (nearly as much) methane. The more oxygen that is present during decomposition, the more carbon dioxide is produced instead of methane.

    •  CraigeryTheKid   ( @CraigeryTheKid@beehaw.org ) English
      4•1 year ago

      so THEN… we can intentionally make small, personal digesters that make high enough pressure/volume methane to run our stoves, to cook more food, to add to the digester! Perpetual energy.

      But all joking aside, I think I have seen people do just this (online) - and it made enough to run a stove.