Midtown East Gets Long-Awaited Food Composting Site

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — People on the East Side of Midtown will no longer need to trek as far south as 14th Street or across the river to Roosevelt Island to drop off their food scraps, thanks to a new composting site that opened Wednesday.

The new Midtown East site is at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, on East 47th Street between First and Second avenues.

City Councilmember Keith Powers cut a ceremonial banana to mark the Earth Day opening Wednesday morning, joined by representatives from the Lower East Side Ecology Center and the Department of Sanitation.

Before Wednesday, the city's map of drop-off composting sites showed a giant gap in central and East Midtown, with the closest sites miles away at the Union Square Greenmarket and the Roosevelt Island Farmers Market.

"Does this mean I don’t have to take a rotting bag of compost all the way to 14th street anymore???" tweeted POLITICO reporter Amanda Eisenberg.

The site will be open on Wednesdays from 8:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. It can be found near the library box and entrance gate to Katherine Hepburn Garden on the First Avenue side of the plaza, behind the cafe.

"I mean, it's one banana, Michael... What could it cost? $10?"

Nice morning celebrating Earth Day, and a food scrap drop-off site at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza! pic.twitter.com/HwYrmEhyCo
— Liz Peters (@lizpeterz) April 21, 2021

Acceptable waste includes: fruits, vegetables and eggshells; coffee, tea and nuts; dried flowers and houseplants; rice, pasta, bread and grains.

Meat, fish and dairy will not be accepted, nor will BPI-certified compostable plastic products, Powers's office said.