September Forum: Composting and Waste Management

September 6, 2011

Don’t throw those food particles down your kitchen sink or the plant clippings in a garbage container; Compost it! Americans throw out an enormous amount of organic matter everyday that can be used otherwise. There are a variety of benefits to managing our waste through composting which is advantageous to our soil and plant life. Join GreenHomeNYC as we discuss Waste Management on a micro and macro level.  Come and be enlightened about this method of waste management and what New Yorkers can do in their individual homes, community gardens and farms to help increase this practice.

Event Details:

Time: Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Please arrive early – We will start promptly at 6:30!

Place: The Trespa Showroom, 62 Greene Street, Ground Floor, NYC, NY 10012

Please RSVP.

Light appetizers and beverages will be provided.

Invited Speakers: Christine Datz-Romero a co-founder and Executive Director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center; Jenny Blackwell the Project Manager of the NYC Compost Project at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Charles Bayrer of Earth Matters, and Stephanos Koullias a co-founder and Project Coordinator of Western Queens Compost Initiative.

This forum is free and open to the general public. Speaker bios are after the jump!

Christine Datz-Romero is one of the co-founders and executive director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center.  Christine has shown her environmental activism by developing innovative, community based recycling programs. Through the Compost Collection program, Christine has introduced the idea of composting to countless New Yorkers, developed an innovative Electronics Waste Recycling program, and put her passion for green space to work by advocating for community involvement in public open space. She holds a BA from Queens College and has done graduate work at the New School/Milano School for Nonprofit Management. As a member of NYC’s environmental community for more than two decades, Christine currently serves on the board of the 6th Street & Avenue B Garden, is a public member of the Waterfront Committee of Community Board 3, and past chair of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board.

Jenny Blackwell is the Project Manager of the NYC Compost Project in Brooklyn hosted at Brooklyn Botanical Garden (BBG). She is a graduate of BBG’s Horticulture Certificate Program. A composting fanatic, she has worked with composting systems at Added Value, the Hollenback Community Garden, BBG, and the Battery Park City Parks Conservancy.

Charlie Bayrer is a a part time volunteer for Earth Matter NY. He has been an active community composter/gardener for 13 years. Co-chair of the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust Health Soils Initiative which sampled and tested the soil in all 34 member gardens in 2007 to 2008. He helped develop the sampling protocol, guidelines for remediation, gardener education on contamination and test interpretation, and implementation of remediation plans. Organizer of the Fort Greene Compost Project, an all volunteer community-based collaboration, currently composting over 40 tons per year of residential food waste for local use. Founding partner of Earth Matter, a membership organization dedicated to the local composting of organic waste by encouraging neighbor participation and leadership. All of these efforts are centered primarily across central Brooklyn from Red Hook to Bushwick

Stephanos Koullias is co founder and project coordinator of WQCI. Following a stint on a farm in upstate NY and intent on working in the burgeoning local food movement, Stephanos participated with Americorps working on sustainable agriculture issues and raising awareness about how food has an impact on society and the environment. Through an involvement in the community gardening community, he also quickly became attuned to the need for compost to grow more nutritious foods, the need to capture and conserve lost energy, and the effect compost could have on socially acceptable practices.