So have you heard that the Adams administration is in the process of evicting a community composting site to create an agency parking lot? This is a site before the nonprofit Big Reuse took over. It was used as a dumping ground for contract to illegally deposit tires and building material. It was under the parks jurisdiction, but they weren’t doing anything in it. And in fact, in their neglect, they negatively impacted the community. And this is after. So the nonprofit Big Reuse took over the site and created this award winning community composting processing facility. It works closely with the parks in western Queens and it compost over 300 tons of leaf and yard waste from parks, and then it returned over 700 yards of compost to the parks and to community gardens. In addition, it took the site that wasn’t being utilized and was actually negatively impacting the community because it was used as a dumping ground and revitalized it and brought in volunteers and taught them about composting and environmental conservation. So the Adams administration has created this false binary where they’re saying that community composting cannot coexist with parks. They need to move several shipping containers and vehicles from this area, which, and there are going to build a park there. And the community really needs this park. It’s actually one of the largest public housing facilities sites in the US so under that guys that, oh, we need to move this stuff there, kicking out big reuse. So big reuse is not actually part of the plan for the parks. It’s next door to it. Meanwhile, the parks department has a huge parking lot next door that’s underutilized. We’ve pulled photos from the past six years on Google Streets, and you could see that there’s like a lot of empty space, which is unusual for a New York City parking lot. We have worked with the center of our Zero Waste design and AIA New York to create an architectural plan showing that you can have composting, this composting site and the new park that’s being built, they can coexist. All that you need to do is use this existing parking lot, which is huge, and just better utilize it to move the storage fees, containers and the vehicles. But unfortunately, under the Commissioner Sue Donahue and the Mayor Adams administration, nothing is working. And this community encompassing site is going to be evicted this Sunday.
We have over 20 council members that have signed this letter of support for Big Reuse. We have the city controller advocating for big reuse to say. We have the congresswoman Alaska is also advocating for big use to s. We have 115 community organizations that signed on and said, com, big Reuse. Community Composting should say. We have the local community boards in support of big reuse. We have over 3,000 people signing a petition. We’ve received media coverage and yet nothing is convincing the Commissioner Sudanahu and nothing is convincing Mayor Adam’s administration despite the fact that they keep talking about climate goals. And how does evicting a community composting site to create a parking lot, an agency parking lot that’s not necessary, align with New York City climate goals? So there is a solution that works and it’s just been a super frustrating process that the Adam’s administration is not listening to any community input and that the parks department is saying that this is our lands and we get to decide how it’s used and we want to use it as a parking lot, it just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t add up. And New York City is about to lose one of the largest community composting sites across the city. And it just sucks and it doesn’t make any sense. And would appreciate if people reach out to the commissioner, Sue Donahue, and say you’re making a big mistake and this is a stain on your legacy, and reach out to Mayor Adams. Not that I actually don’t think he cares, but I think it’s important to let him know that this is not something that the people want.