Leafing
The story of NYC Parks Department’s unlikely new partnership
In Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side, you know, where the Mayor lives, a Park’s employee parts a carpet of copper Oak leaves. Deliberately pulling the rake across the asphalt he’s not just clearing a path, he’s collecting organic, all natural, sustainably harvested, local, artisanal, fertilizer… and the farmer’s market isn’t even on today.
Meanwhile, at McGlorick Park in Greenpoint, leaves are gathered with huge tarps, like an olive harvest. Here the leaves aren’t debris, litter, or waste; they are celebrated as tiny vitamin packs ready to be processed into a dark-brown tree smoothie.
If fall means anything, it means leaves. Tons and tons of leaves turning every shade of flame then slowly, but most assuredly, fluttering down to the sidewalk. What happens to all those leaves?
For NYC Parks it’s a very important question. There are approximately 5.2 million trees in the city, meaning there is a lot of leaf litter to manage. The strategy used to be to corral all these bits of organic confetti into bags and take them to the landfill. Not only did trucking the leaves away mean that more precious landfill space was taken up by organics (currently about 38% of NYC waste is organic material), but there was a missed opportunity to cheaply and efficiently fertilize park plants.
Leaf litter is fertilizer; sacred nutrients recovered from the tree and disposed of near the roots to be reabsorbed in the spring as the leaves break down. It’s a brilliant closed-loop system lady Nature has been using for millions of years, all over the world.
About a decade ago the Parks Department started engaging with the nutrient cycle and composting began to dominate the leaf litter strategy. The idea is put simply by NYC parks gardener Gosha Mosiej:
“Compost is a necessary element in the garden; it’s one of the links in the chain of a healthy park. If it comes from the garden, why should we spend money to buy compost, and pay to deliver it; isn`t it a waste?”
With this in mind, the NYC Parks Department shifted from a linear waste stream approach, where the leaves were treated as trash, to a more sustainable and cost effective closed-loop approach. This shift demonstrates the willingness of this municipality to mimic natural systems, as well as to partner with them. Today, they trade raw leaf material with the Department of Sanitation of New York (DSNY) for ready-to-go compost, a symbiotic cross-departmental agreement.
Small-scale composting is utilized on-site in almost every park. These compost systems range from large, fenced-in leaf collection areas to small, cylindrical bins nestled out-of-sight between shrubs.
Composting is a different process from just mulching the leaves. Worms, along with bacteria, fungi and other insects, make their way into the bins and slowly break down and digest the leaf litter, leaving behind a rich, dark brown, nutrient-packed compost. Park gardeners partner with these beneficial organisms to preserve the sacred nutrients encapsulated in each leaf. It is this partnership, human and non-human, that makes this process so incredible.
By shifting to a closed-loop system, the Parks Department not only eliminated a terminal point for the leaf litter, but generates a useful product in the process. This partnership between the human and non-human world is invaluable in developing sustainable strategies in urban areas moving forward.
Plus, who doesn’t love a good jump in a leaf pile;)
Resources:
A Plan for Sustainable Practices within NYC Parks. 2011
Editing thanks to Anna Macoboy and Michelle Kamerath
