Dozens of residents packed Sea Cliff Village Hall for a public meeting on Oct. 9 to hear about options for composting in the village and to share their thoughts on a possible community program.
Laura Russo, co-chair of the village’s Environmental Conservation Commission, said she asked the state Department of Environmental Conservation this summer to organize the meeting after seeing a comment from Village Administrator Bruce Kennedy in the Herald that Sea Cliff’s Department of Public Works “doesn’t have legal authorization from the Department of Environmental Conservation to compost any food waste.”
Dina Epstein, Russo’s fellow commission co-chair and a former village trustee said the meeting also aimed to gauge community interest in composting. “Is there a demand for the municipality to get involved, or is this something that people want to do at home and are currently doing at home?” she asked.
The featured speaker was Daniel Ricci, Long Island recycling coordinator for the DEC, who walked residents through a 43-slide presentation on where residential waste goes, how it can be reduced and how composting works.
According to the DEC, Nassau and Suffolk counties have the highest disposal rate of pounds, per person, per day in New York state. Ricci added that Sea Cliff generated 2,000 tons of residential waste in 2024. The ever-increasing quantity of waste, and the rising cost of disposing of it, can transfer the burden to communities that may not want it, Ricci explained.
“I don’t know if any of you have tried to build a landfill,” he said, “but it’s almost impossible to do that now.” The DEC must approve permits, and the process is complicated by the need for permits from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well.
The capacity of Long Island landfills, like those statewide, is decreasing, and they have a high environmental impact, including increased greenhouse gas emissions. With landfills shutting down, the monetary and environmental costs of residential waste are only going to increase, Ricci added.
The diminishing options inspired the creation of the DEC State Solid Waste Management Plan. Its goal, Ricci said, is to reduce waste collected for landfills and combustion by 85 percent by 2050. A study of statewide waste audits from 2022 and DEC data from 2018 found that roughly 85 percent of the residential waste stream can be reused or recycled.
Composting is the process of recycling organic matter, such as food scraps and yard waste, into a nutrient-rich soil amendment. The benefits of the topsoil generated by composting, Ricci explained, include a slow release of nutrients, drought and blight resistance and runoff reduction. Materials that can be used in the process include coffee grounds, stale bread, grass clippings, nut shells, fruits and vegetables.
Following the PowerPoint presentation by Daniel Ricci, Long Island recycling coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, residents had the chance to share their thoughts on composting.
Luke Feeney/Herald
Ricci highlighted three composting options for residents and municipalities, with varying levels of regulation. The first, backyard composting, is minimally regulated, but can be subject to inspection by the DEC. It can be done on an individual or small-community scale. The recommended size is around 100 people, and the operation is exempt from regulation if less than 1,000 pounds of food waste per week is composted.
The second option, community composting, must be registered with the DEC, and is subject to regulations and inspections. Ricci highlighted the Brooklyn-based BK Rot, a community-centered, fossil fuel-free approach to hauling and composting food waste, as a potential example that Sea Cliff could follow.
Such sites, he said, are not allowed to process more than 5,000 cubic yards of waste per year, and groundwater monitoring by the DEC is required for sites producing more than 3,000 cubic yards per year.
Regional partnerships for large-scale composting was the third option. These sites, which process more than 5,000 cubic yards of waste per year, must be registered with DEC, and are subject to mandatory groundwater monitoring.
Following the presentation, several residents asked about the logistical details of composting, as well as options that the village could explore. Some questioned the village’s stance that a community composting program cannot be managed by the DPW, which oversees the daily collection of garbage and recycling from nearly 2,000 residences and roughly 100 commercial properties.
Mayor Elena Villafane and Village Administrator Bruce Kennedy could not attend the Oct. 9 meeting, and village Trustee and ECC member Mark Sobel spoke on behalf of the village.”There’s nobody in the village that is against composting,” Sobel said, pointing to the increasing cost of waste management.
He made it clear, however, that he did not want to give DPW “any more responsibility than they already (have). They’re doing everything already,” Sobel added. “These people are our employees. They work really hard, (and) to give them any more work than that … is not fair.”
Despite those concerns, when Epstein asked whether there was “interest in composting at a community level,” the majority of the audience raised their hands.
