In Hudson River Park, we’re passionate about keeping our gardens trim and stunning. We’re also dedicated to becoming more sustainable and serving as a true ally to our beautiful riverside environment. That’s why we were so excited to open our new composting center last November, and why we’re thrilled to tell you about the major impact it’s making!

You can find our composting center across from Hudson Yards at 34th Street. What you won’t find, though, are the carting trucks we once used to bring landscape waste to the landfill. The Park generates 180 tons of garden waste per year, and in 2015, we trucked away more than 13 dumpsters of discarded organic material. This year, our composting efforts have allowed us to eliminate this process entirely! Now all organic landscape waste is brought to the composting center where members of our horticulture team recycle it to create a valuable resource. There, the materials are either added to our Earth Flow Composting Vessel or sorted into traditional aerated static compost piles.

Once the waste is in the composting vessel or the piles, we mix in food scraps we’ve collected — this creates the best balance between carbon-rich landscape material and nitrogen-rich scraps. So far in 2016, programs we’ve created for collecting discarded food from our office, tenants and the public have gathered more than 8,200 pounds of food for our compost. Since we combine food with landscape material at a two-to-one ratio, that means our Park’s composting vessel has processed more than 24,600 pounds of waste just this year!

That’s all waste Hudson River Park has kept out of landfills where it would have produced harmful methane gas. Instead, we’ve been able to use the compost we’ve made to give nutrients to our Park’s soil. Often called, “black gold” by gardeners, compost is a great amendment — it provides structure and water retention to sandy soils, and for clay, it adds pore space and increases aeration. Compost is also loaded with beneficial bacteria and fungi that naturally fortify plants’ ability to resist diseases and pests.

We love watching how our Park’s composting efforts decrease our carbon footprint while enhancing the health and heartiness of our plant-life. Just take a stroll along any of our lovely gardens and green spaces, and you’ll see that our flowers, bushes and trees are thriving. We look forward to keeping their soil rich with compost in the months and years to come, and we love to see Park fans get involved! We have two compost drop-offs, and contributing to our collection is an easy way to help the environment and make an impact.