Today, we tip our hat to a couple of locals who are making the East Village a greener, cleaner place.

Steven Burke Christine Datz-Romero

At the Union Square Greenmarket one Saturday morning, Christine Datz-Romero milled around the back of her utility van, handling clear bags of what looked like dirt. Wearing airy gardening clothes and a friendly smile, she moved with a calm energy and a spryness that belied her age of 53.

The material in the bags was compost. Ms. Datz-Romero, Manhattan’s mystic of food waste, was there to sell it, teach about it, and collect materials to make more of it.

Since 1994, Ms. Datz-Romero and the Lower East Side Ecology Center, which she co-founded 25 years ago, have run a collection service that takes local kitchen scraps, diverts them from landfills, and turns them into compost – a rich organic material that helps to provide plants with nutrients and to sequester carbon when added to soils.

The group currently collects four tons of food waste per week, from 1,500 households. Read more…