About Our Organization
BK ROT is a community centered, closed loop, fossil fuel free approach to hauling and composting food waste in NYC.
We are New York City's first community-supported, bike-powered, fossil fuel free food waste hauling and composting service.
Our project is staffed by young people of color who haul residential and commercial organic waste and transform it into high quality compost.
Collect
We are a community centered, closed loop, fossil-fuel free approach to hauling and composting food waste in NYC using strategies for urban sustainability. Our operations provide accessible jobs and sustained professional development for emerging environmental leaders.
Compost
We process organics at local, publicly accessible sites in Brooklyn, so you know your organic waste is turning into compost and not tossed in a landfill (a common practice with larger haulers). That compost is distributed locally, benefitting our soils, plants, and community.
Contribute
We advocate and push to transform the waste industry, allocate public resources to build resilience in our neighborhoods, combatting climate change. Your support creates space for young people of color who disproportionately face environmental harms to grow and lead.
Our History
2014
Sandy Nurse came up with the idea for a youth-of-color-run bike-based compost pickup service while she was delivering food by bike in 2011. She imagined a different system that uplifted communities that have historically been the most burdened by waste. She started shopping this idea around, and eventually linked up with Renée Peperone at a 596 Acres meeting. Together they piloted the composting program that would become BK ROT and hired the first workers. In 2014 the lot for Know Waste Lands, our main site of operations, was acquired.
2015
In 2015, BK ROT incorporated as a non-profit, allowing us to create a financial structure, apply for grants, and have our first official Board of Directors and Advisory Board!
2018
After 5 years of BK ROT being entirely volunteer coordinated and led, we began to consider other more equitable models. This work is important and shouldn’t be done just by communities privileged enough to have the free time to volunteer to do it. In 2018, Sandy was hired as Executive Director and served until 2019 where she would run and later become a city council member for the 37th district.
2019
In 2019 came new leadership as Ceci became BK ROT’s executive director. Ceci expanded on BK ROT’s founding principles of uplifting our communities by expanding the BK ROT staff and the creation of our Summer Youth Leadership Program. The project was held together through the first year and a half of COVID despite all the challenges of operating through a global pandemic.
2020
During the pandemic, more people than ever were looking for solutions for the broken food waste system that was perpetuating deep inequalities within our communities. In 2020, we piloted processing with 3 new partner gardens, Green Acres Garden, Good Life Garden, and Aberdeen Garden, to meet this growing demand. They have all remained a part of the BK ROT family to this day.
_JPG.jpg)
2021
In 2021, BK ROT raised wages for every youth worker age 16-25 from $15 to $20 an hour. Our team grew to 14 by the end of the year. To this day we continue on this path of providing youth workers with more hours and wage increases to provide them meaningful, economically viable jobs.
​
We also experienced an exciting change in leadership this year, with long time directors Renée and Ceci going on to future endeavors. Thus BK ROT welcomed Dior and Nora, as our new co-directors, to help shape BK ROT’s future together with us all!
2024
In 2024, to meet the needs of more community members in Brooklyn and commercial clients we expanded our composting operations to Imani Garden. Our 2024 youth leader cohort were intimately involved in shaping our presence within the Imani Garden community and we continue to strive to deepen our roots there!
Our Impact
1.5M
lbs of organic waste diverted from the landfill & composted
4.5k
bike miles of emissions-free hauling of food waste per year
665k
lbs of high quality compost created by BK ROT youth
210k
worth of income generated for young workers
Download annual reports (PDF):
Memory Board
