March 22, 2024
Honorable Sue Donoghue, Commissioner
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
830 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10065
Dear Commissioner Donoghue,
We write to express our unwavering support of Big Reuse and the Queensbridge Community Compost Site, which has operated since 2017. The Parks Department’s plan to not renew a license agreement with Big Reuse would effectively end Big Reuse’s community critical composting program. A program that provides tremendous benefits to the residents of Queens and beyond. As elected officials whose communities benefit from community composting, we urge the Parks Department to offer Big Reuse a new license agreement so that they can continue their composting operations.
The Queensbridge Community Compost site is an award-winning location that has composted over a million pounds of Parks Department leaves and wood chips and provided over a thousand cubic yards of high-quality compost back to NYC Parks since its inception. As part of the Department of Sanitation’s composting network, over 976,000 pounds of food scraps were composted and 700 cubic yards of high quality, screened compost was produced and returned to 154 different schools, parks, community gardens, and greening projects in NYC last year alone. This site is an internationally recognized model for urban sustainability that is treasured by both the local community and communities across the city.
While we understand that the Parks Department will be undertaking a capital project to improve Queensbridge Baby Park, the site that is currently utilized by Big Reuse falls outside of the project footprint. Given that multiple city agencies utilize lots under the Queensboro Bridge for agency parking, it would be unfortunate if this vital community resource was sacrificed for a
handful of parking spaces. We ask that you honor the wishes of the local council member, her constituents, and communities across the city and continue the valuable partnership with Big Reuse by offering them a new long-term license agreement that allows them to continue composting underneath the Queensboro Bridge.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
- CM Julie Won
- CM Shekar Krishnan
- CM Shaun Abreu
- CM Tiffany Cabán
- CM Julie Menin
- CM Narcisse
- CM Sandy Nurse
- CM Sandra Ung
- CM Rita Joseph
- CM Lincoln Restler
- CM Lynn Schulman
- CM Shahana Hanif
- CM Jim Gennaro
- CM Jennifer Gutiérrez
- CM Christopher Marte
- CM Crystal Hudson
- CM Alexa Avilés
- CM Erik Bottcher
- CM Chi Ossé