Rocky The Pug Helps Astorians Compost After NYC Suspends Program

ASTORIA, QUEENS — When the city sanitation department halted composting pickups last month due to budget cuts, one Astorian took matters into his own paws.

Rocky the pug — with the help of his owners, Lou E. Reyes and Caren Tedesco Cardoso — is the face of a new weekly composting pickup in Astoria meant to help fill the void left by the temporary suspension of the city's composting program, a victim of the budget cuts enacted amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Reyes, who said he's been composting "forever," said the makeshift program started out as a way for him and his partner to continue recycling their food scraps once their nearby drop-off sites closed, but they wanted their neighbors to be able to get in on it.

"We thought it was very shortsighted to help ourselves and not others," Reyes told Patch. "There is a need for it."

Each weekend, the trio makes a series of stops around Astoria to collect residents' food scraps. Seven weeks into the initiative, they've already collected more than 3,000 pounds of compost.

"In 20 minutes, we tend to collect about 100 pounds," Reyes said.

Reyes has been composting for as long as he can remember. Before he moved from Brooklyn to Astoria 11 years ago, he biked his compost from Flatbush to Manhattan's Union Square every week.

Astoria has a number of composting pickup sites, but that changed when the Department of Sanitation announced it would be suspending its composting service until June 2021.

To start their own program, the couple spent more than $300 to to kickstart the operation by purchasing collection bins, a scraper and blankets to cover the scraps.

They initially paid community gardens $40 each to take the compost, but their operation quickly outgrew that setup. Now, they pay two commercial haulers to pick up the hundreds of pounds of scraps they collect every weekend.

Reyes said he hopes to one day partner with City Council Member Costa Constantinides, who represents the neighborhood, so he can further expand the initiative.

"We applaud the work Rocky the Pug and his parents have done to expand composting here in Astoria," Constantinides told Patch through a spokesperson. "This is not where we should make cuts right now, and I hope we in city government can expand the grassroots effort of our community."

The couple credits Rocky, who has hundreds of followers on Instagram, with piquing neighbors' interest in participating. The couple's email newsletter that announces each weekend's drop-off sites now has at least 240 subscribers, and donors have contributed over $700 to help subsidize the program.

"It's pretty gratifying," Reyes said. "But you take a step back and it can be incredibly depressing. It's just a drop in the bucket."