Earth Matter NY Inc

We see that:

There is one soil, one air, and one water, all commonly held and stewarded by one people, the nurturance of which is critical to a verdant world.

- Organic waste should not be part of modern landfills because the waste of any process is food for other processes.
- Transportation of waste far beyond the source unnecessarily despoils the soil, air, and water.
- Society needs to alter the way waste is treated as part of an integrated, long term solution to food, climate, and energy issues.
- The power to manifest global social change lies within each of us. The challenge to take action rests on our shoulders.

We endeavor to:

- Compost organic waste locally on behalf of our friends.
- Educate, encourage, and support ongoing community composting efforts.
- Utilize best practices for the improvement of soil health.
- Promote water conservation practices to reduce the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) burden on municipal sewer systems.

The strategies we use to make this happen include:

- NYC Compost Project, a DSNY project which works to rebuild NYC’s soils by providing New Yorkers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to make and use compost locally;

- Soil Start Farm, which uses urban composting to not only divert organic waste from landfill and amend existing soil but demonstrate how gardeners can use readily-available materials to create compost to grow plants in urban soil conditions;

- The Lavender Field, a healing space for the community, bees, and the earth. The field provides visitors with an oasis where they can set aside the stresses of city life through yoga and meditation. Lavender is also a potentially beneficial pollinator plant to protect and support Governors Island’s bees in the face of climate change. Lavender is planted in soil enriched with compost made by Earth Matter NY.

- Zero Waste Island Initiative, which works with island vendors to model a closed-loop system.

Our organization's capabilities include our core relationships with DSNY, The Trust for Governors Island, Friends of Governors Island, Billion Oyster Project, and Harbor School. We are also supported by the many trained apprentices, interns, and volunteers who help us carry out our projects from composting to animal care to urban farming. We also receive funding from numerous corporate, nonprofit, and foundation partners, among them NY Service Corp, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Patagonia, Community Access, Downtown Alliance, BioBag, and Sustainable Generation.

We have accomplished much in our nearly 10 years, including establishing a successful apprentice and intern program, starting and maintaining a compost-enriched demonstration farm, creating a lavender field to further engage the public in conversations around the benefits of composting and the importance of pollinators to mitigate climate change, diverting thousands of tons of organic waste that would otherwise contribute to climate change to productive use in partnership with DSNY's NYC Compost Project, and playing host to thousands of visitors each season at Governors Island to introduce them, many for the first time, to the what, why, and how of composting.