Composting the Five Borough Bike Ride

Every year thirty thousand cyclists ride through the city, enjoying exclusive access of major streets, bridges, and highways. In their wake the also leave lots of banana and orange peels. All those peels would normally be mixed with other non-compostable garbage in distant landfills where if would fester and emit harmful greenhouse gasses. Since 2009, under the guidance of Master Composter Shirley Chai, a small dedicated group of individuals has been taking in those peel and transforming it into a usable and nutrient rich soil amendment known as compost.

Setting up early in the morning of the tour, volunteers will position themselves at strategic locations throughout the largest rest stop, acting as "Debris Deputies" and assisting ride participants to discard their refuse in the proper receptacles. A second group of volunteers will be making round trips to a secret location to deposit the compostables. A third group of participants will begin building compost piles. For the following the compost will be turned daily. The finished compost will be donated to five school gardens in the community.

The peels diverted from the bike tour solve several problems. ONE - TRANSPORTATION. Instead of trucking the peels, which consist of mostly water that would evaporate given the right conditions, they are pedaled out to local community composting sites... emitting no carbon monoxide. TWO - HANDLING. The peels are kept separate by volunteers at the bike tour. This saves time and money down the line, since they won't have to be sorted manually or mechanically later on. THREE - LOGISTICS. Instead of trucking the compostables to far away sites to be trashed, an alos have to ship in dirt and compost for gardens, the compostables will be transformed in te community.