post. That compost would eventually
be spread in the city’s parks, distributed
through giveaways, and purchased by
landscapers for fourteen dollars per
cubic yard. “We process the trees differ-
ently, because the needles are so acidic;
that’s why you never see anything grow-
ing at the base of a pine tree,” Mike
LeBlanc told me. LeBlanc is a facilities
manager for Denali Water Solutions,
which runs the site. Organic waste was
arranged in nine windrows—long, wide
strips that resemble burial mounds—
which are monitored for levels of car-
bon and nitrogen, and also for tem-
perature. Microorganisms generate heat,
which speeds the transformation from
waste to the “black gold” of suitable
compost. At about a hundred and sixty
degrees, harmful bacteria and weed seeds
are destroyed.
“Right now, it’s a four-to-five-month
process,” Scott Morrell, the operation
manager, explained. Interspersed among
the windrows were truck-size machines
that looked like toys: a bright-orange
Doppstadt Inventhor ground up trees,
an emerald-green Komptech Multistar
sorted waste by size, and a white-and-
yellow SCARAB turned and aerated the
windrows with its inner spokes. Point-
ing to a thin brick tower in the distance,
LeBlanc said, “We use that smokestack
off the Con Ed plant to see which way
the wind is blowing, because we try not
to turn the piles when it’s going to send
the smell inland.” Even a perfectly main-
tained compost pile starts out as many
buckets of organic waste.
The only food waste handled at the
Fresh Kills site comes from Staten Is-
land itself—the borough, having been
the city’s principal landfill for more than
forty years, has had enough of taking
waste from the rest of the city. Seagulls,
starlings, and sparrows crowded the
windrows, which are full of nourish-
ment. “Let’s show you the Tiger,” Le-
Blanc said, turning away from the wind-
rows and toward a huge white canopy,
several stories high. Inside was the Tiger
Depack—a royal-blue machine with a
white tiger painted on the side. It’s the
size of a dumpster, but louder and pret-
tier, with a price tag of about a million
dollars. Through a centrifuge, the ma-
chine separates waste from the bags
that it comes in. The bags and food
wrappers, which are less dense than the
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