Forest Hills Compost Collective Focuses On Regrowth

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Inside an unassuming lot along Yellowstone Boulevard, in the shadow of the old abandoned Long Island Rail Road tracks that run across the border between Forest Hills and Rego Park, a dedicated crew of volunteers turns trash into treasure.

They are the Compost Collective, a group that put down roots in the neighborhood about eight years ago with collection bins at the Church-in-the-Gardens and has since expanded to its own site on Yellowstone near Kessel Street.

The group, which, at its peak, has boasted nearly four dozen volunteers as young as 12 and as old as 82, prides itself on being the only community composting group that distributes its compost to the public for free.

Now the Compost Collective faces the challenge of rebuilding, after the Department of Sanitation ordered community composting sites to close during New York City's springtime frenzy to beat back the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic.

The composting site reopened months later, as summer waned into fall, but only the "hardcore composters" have returned, according to Carlos Pesantes, the collective's founder.

Pesantes estimated that the group has collected just a third of the amount they normally have by this time of year. Most of the hardworking worms that help process the food scraps have died.

Still, the collective is up to the challenge.

Santa Claus stopped by the most recent collection Saturday to bring some holiday cheer to volunteers and their children, and an ongoing raffle is raising money for a mulcher and wood chipper.

To Pesantes, composting is more than just an effort toward environmental conversation.

"This is a nice way of taking the crap that we have to deal with right now and turning it into something good," Pesantes said.