He Saved His Community When He Saved Himself—The Story of Domingo Morales

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Domingo Morales grew up in public housing in Harlem and sold candy in subways to help his mother pay rent. By 19 he had two kids and no steady income, but then Domingo stumbled upon a chance to work with Green City Force, an non-profit that teaches young people in the projects careers in horticulture, solar installation and other environmental jobs. Today Domingo is teaching communities how to farm thru city wide composting. But he’s done more than show people how to grow food, he’s showing them how to grow their communities. Join Jon and Verda as they learn more about Domingo’s amazing story.


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Break Some Dishes is presented by Davies Office.

This transcript was made possible by an automated service. In some cases it may contain errors. 

 

 

Jon: [00:00:00] Welcome to break some dishes,

Verda: defying the rules to inspire design.

Jon: I’m Jon Strassner

Verda: and I’m Verda Alexander. All right, John, another one of your finds today.

Jon: Oh, yeah.

Verda: And it might actually be one of my favorite episodes. I try not to say that too often.

Jon: Yeah. I’m excited to talk to Domingo Morales. What a great story.

I think, Verda, as we were preparing to talk to him, this one actually, I feel like it really took preparation. Sometimes there are personalities that are so big, we almost have to decide what we want to focus on. And I just felt like there were a lot of stories around Domingo.

Verda: Yeah. And I read the article, New York city’s compost champion.

So I had a little bit of a background story.

Jon: Yeah.

Verda: Sounds like it just an incredible man who’s done a lot. Again has found his passion.

Jon: Yeah,

Verda: just like by you Dave, right?

Jon: And I think it’s gonna be remarkable talking to him because here’s a young man who has really battled What life is thrown at him? So far, he’s come from, you know, a disenfranchised, disadvantaged neighborhood.

You know, he had challenges growing up that a lot of us could never imagine. And I was a little bit torn before we talked to him because I Didn’t want that to be what we focused on. I wanted to focus on what he’s doing for his community, regardless of how hard he had a battle to get there, but it’s impossible to ignore, you know, what he’s done to get to where he is today.

That’s what I think is remarkable about Domingo.

Verda: Yeah. Yes. Um, anyways, I think we haven’t really talked about composting ever.

Jon: No.

Verda: Yeah. And for me, I compost, like I’ve been composting for over a decade. California is, has had composting since, oh my God, since 2016 or something like that. So yeah. Almost a decade.

And it just completely naturally, I just do it by habit. And I’m always shocked. I go to so many places, pretty much everywhere else. People don’t compost or, or there’s no curbside pickup for your compost. So if you want to compost, it’s, it’s a big ordeal. You have to join a program if there is one, or you have to.

Do it in your backyard, which I would never had any success with. So I hope we get some tips from Domingo on how to compost at home.

Jon: And if you don’t know what composting is, and you’re listening to this episode, composting is really saving your food waste, right? Because the landfills are really challenged with, with, Dealing with all the food that we throw away in this country.

Food waste is a huge problem. And while I’m excited to talk with Domingo about the work he’s done composting, I hope that this episode and I think that it will, because I want all of our episodes to achieve this. I want this. Episode to be bigger than composting, right? Composting is the core, but I think it’s going to be a bigger conversation, which is what I’m really excited about.

Verda: Well, I think we’re going to talk about how he’s transforming his own community through composting, right?

Rob: Yeah.

Verda: But I do think that there is a lot to be said about composting. I it’s a huge part of the landfill, maybe a third to a quarter. So. We all composted. We could reduce landfill size by a third to a quarter.

There’s just so many benefits. I noticed how much my garbage was reduced in the black bin by just composting what I can.

Jon: Don’t you think people Assume that if they throw food away, it’s biodegradable and it’s going to go in the landfill and in like in a few days or a couple of weeks, that will just degrade, biodegrade and be gone.

Verda: Maybe. I don’t know what people are thinking.

Jon: Yeah. Well, I don’t either, but that’s my, that’s my theory. All right. Hey, let’s talk to Domingo. Yeah.

Verda: Let’s, let’s hear about the composting and the bigger picture.

Domingo: I grew up in the Bronx in the South Bronx and. Um, I grew up in public housing. Um, fortunately, I didn’t live only in the Bronx. I actually lived in every borough throughout my lifetime. Most of the time, I grew up in public housing and, um, I grew up in poverty and I was more focused on the day to day survival of life, right?

What are we going to eat? Um, how are we going to get food [00:05:00] on, um, food on the plate? How are we going to get clothes on our backs? And I grew up really quick, really young. I was like selling candy on the train to help my mother pay bills and help support my family. And for a short period of time, I was dancing on the train.

So I was like a hustler as a kid. And part of that’s because, like, I grew up in poverty. And when I finished school, I ended up having a kid right after high school. And I’m like, All right, I can’t go to college. So I just gotta get I gotta get a job. I gotta I got to put food on the table. It became this like vicious cycle of me getting temporary jobs.

Um, and as a kid, I was always like a critical thinker. I always wanted to know how things were designed. I would like buy Walkmans from Radio Shack, um, with the money that I saved from selling candy. Um, take them apart and then put them back together. And I always had this like. This tinker brain, like how do things work?

And, um, growing up, what that meant was I would grab jobs that I was really interested in, like plumbing, electrical work, building maintenance, computed technician. And the goal was to like, learn these systems. How does this work? How do computers work? How does plumbing work? But there would always be this like.

This time where I would just get so bored and feel like there’s nothing left. So that became dead end jobs that really had no future for me. Um, and that’s how I went through life. I went through life, just working, working, working, trying to fulfill that craving of information, the challenge. I love a good challenge.

And when a job. Stopped giving me that challenge. It got boring and I would quit and kind of move on to the next thing. And I did that up until 2014. And in 2014 I was working at a restaurant and I was doing everything in that restaurant. I was fixing things. I was the porter. I was the delivery guy. I was doing food prep, but I was being paid as just a delivery guy, which at that time was like 6 an hour plus tips, um, to get us to that 8 minimum wage mark that it was in New York City at the time.

And I, I told the manager, I said, Hey, look, I am this store. Like this restaurant doesn’t run without me. I need a raise. I need more money. I need to feel like you value what I’m bringing to this table. And she told me like, well, minimum wage goes up in September. And I’m like, well, That’s I’m leaving then.

And she’s like, you can leave. No, one’s forcing you to come here. And I’m like, all right, I am. And she’s like, I’ll, I’ll replace you before the shift is over. And she called me 10 minutes after I left. And she said, can you please come back? We can’t find anyone. I’m like, no, I’m not coming back. So I left the restaurant and it was at that moment that I decided, I don’t know what my purpose is.

I don’t know why I’m on this planet. I don’t know what to do with all this energy I have. And I really got into this deep depression where I didn’t know what to do with myself. And, um, I went into my building at the time in East Harlem because me and my kid’s mother, um, when I meet. Quitting that job. She really didn’t like me quitting that job.

She’s like, no, how are we going to make money? So that like we separated because of that. It’s like, you got a plan, right? I mean, no, you have a plan. And I’m like, no, I don’t, I don’t have a plan. I would 22 year olds. I I’ve been wasting my time in these dead end jobs and I don’t have a plan. So I’m just going to figure it out.

And she just, she couldn’t deal with that. And. You know, I respect her to this day for not seeing that, not feeling what I felt. Right. She, she didn’t feel what I could feel. And as an individual, you have to understand that sometimes people don’t feel how you feel. Um, and for her, I was being valued because I was getting paid.

Um, so we ended up separating. So I was living with my mother and I went into my mother’s building and I was going into the elevator and my goal was to, I used to like go to the roof and contemplate life. Like, am I supposed to be alive? Should I jump off this roof? So I was planning on doing one of those sessions where I just sit on the edge of the roof and just contemplate life.

And I saw a green city forest flyer on the elevator door and on that flyer said, are you 18 to 24? Do you have a high school diploma or equivalent? Do you live in NYCHA? Do you want to rebuild your community? And on the flyer, it was a bunch of young adults that looked just like me. Black and brown adults in AmeriCorps uniform.

Um, this was a Green City Force flyer. And I’m like, this must be for me. Um, so I like grabbed the flyer, ripped it off the door. I went to my mother’s house. I made the call. Now is my first introduction to sustainability because I went to a green city forest info session and at that info session, they moved me.

They made me feel like I had the capability to change systems. They started teaching me about sustainability and this was just a two hour info session. And I came out of that info [00:10:00] session feeling recharged, feeling like, wait, there are systems that I don’t know are designed. You mean it’s. NYCHA public housing is designed to be unsustainable.

This was intentional by design.

Jon: Yeah.

Domingo: So I left that. I left that meeting and I’m like, okay, this program is for me. So I joined green city force. A couple months later, it was a long, daunting process, and it was another process when my kid’s mother’s like, Oh, here we go. He’s joining a program that’s not even paying him per hour.

It’s a stipend. And I’m like, but they, I feel good. Like they make me feel good. So I joined the program and they put me on the farm team and in the beginning, I’m like, I don’t want to be a farmer. It’s not what I want to do. Um, I want to do solar. I want to do energy. I want to do, um, engineering. Do you guys have that?

And they had an energy team, but the energy team was only a six month team. And the farm team, which was growing produce for residents for free in New York city, they were 11 month core. And with the 11 month team, there’s so much time that you still get to dive into. Electrical auditing. You still get that experience as well.

So they looked at my resume and said, no, you have plumbing experience. You’ve done electrical, you’ve done landscaping, you have carpentry, you belong on a farm. And as a germaphobe, I didn’t, I’m like, no, I don’t belong on a bar. I’m going to die. Like there are pathogens that are. You know, bacteria that are going to kill me.

And I, you know, they sent me to the farm and I was really resistant and hesitant. Um, but then I got to the farm and the first thing we did was plant seeds and till the soil, and it was really physical and I’ve always been a physical person. So in the beginning. It was just physical work that really got me into farming.

And, you know, from there, I haven’t, I haven’t looked back. That’s kind of how I got started. And eventually I started to learn about the things that scared me the most, which were, uh, The, the invisible enemies that we can’t see, right? The FBI, for me, the fungus, bacteria, insects. Um, those are the things, those are the things that really scared me.

Um, as a young adult and growing up in public housing, I was surrounded by. Filth, and this is by design, you know, the trash on the, on the sidewalk, the, the improper waste systems in the building. So we have rats that are climbing through walls in the buildings. I was surrounded by this. So I kind of lived in this bubble where I was like, But

Jon: that didn’t bother you.

Domingo: Not like farming. It, it bothered me. So when I lived in public housing, I was that kid in my household where if my brothers and sisters took a sip from my cup of juice, they could have it. Like you can have that. I don’t want your germs. If there was, uh, if there was foreign water on the floor, Floor in the bathroom.

I couldn’t walk in that bathroom. Yeah. So I would like go, yeah, with shoes and a mop and like clean the bathroom before I, so I was always this germophobe who lived in public housing.

Jon: Composting is just a perfect place for germophobe, clearly .

Domingo: Wow. It’s

Jon: almost cruel.

Domingo: It was the worst place they could have possibly put me at that time.

Verda: or so you thought? I think .

Domingo: So I thought, because I fell in love with. The good guys, the bacteria, the fungus that they use to make antibiotics, the bacteria that are naturally on our skin, our microbiome that protects us from these organisms that could kill us. And realizing that The reason why we were so sick and so prone to these illnesses in the black and brown or poor community was because we weren’t living healthy.

We didn’t have healthy produce. Our waste systems weren’t designed to be clean. It was designed to be filthy because it was a project, which is why most. public housing developments are called projects because it was, it was an experiment. How could this work? Um, so kind of realizing through this program by farming and growing food in the backyard, um, there are good guys and good germs that I need to learn about and composting with David Buck, who at the Red Hook compost site, that was my introduction to composting and what really loved about David, who is this compost champion and Red Hook was, he was also Sort of a germaphobe.

And he worked in the car. So I’m like, okay, this guy, like he wears gloves that go up to his forearms. He has a face mask. He has plastic gloves under his rubber gloves. If he could do it, I could do it. Um, and also what intrigued me was his, he was so into it. He was so passionate about it. And I’m like, why is this guy so passionate about trash?

This is garbage. Like why are you so passionate? And, um, that was like the start of the journey of me just being curious of, okay, why is the system here? Why, why do we throw away all of our food scraps if we can recycle them? And why aren’t we growing more food? In New York City. Why are we trucking food from far and wide when we could be building super so [00:15:00] you in our backyard with all of the food that comes into New York City.

So, um, to answer your question, that’s really, that’s my background. And that’s what got me into compost.

Jon: I don’t know if we can improve the episode at this point.

Verda: That’s a great backstory. Uh, and I think. I think there is something with composting. It’s, it is a creative act. It’s a, a balancing act. It’s an, it’s an art, artistic practice.

I, I truly believe it. And I think because it is so connected to natural processes, and I think that’s probably why your germophobe issues went away because if we all lived more natural lives, we would live better. More clean lives with those good bacteria and the good dirt that’s actually truly clean, right?

Um, so let’s fast forward to 2020 or so, you by necessity found yourself contemplating starting your own business. I guess you had gotten laid off at the botanical garden, right? And you actually started Compost Power. So a business and it’s a consultancy as well. And you’ve got a number of projects at different of these public housing sites.

Do you feel like you’re changing the environment? You talked about how public housing is by design and trash is by design. Do you feel like you’re improving the quality of the environment? through these projects?

Domingo: Yeah, I think I do. I think part of it is, um, we live of public housing. Most campuses are in food deserts, which mean they don’t have fresh, affordable food nearby, right?

Um, where I grew up in, in Wilson Woodrow houses. Right across the street. We have a chicken spot, a Chinese restaurants. We have, um, white castle, and then we have one supermarket and the supermarket that’s there, the produce kind of goes past our community and then comes back on their way out of the city.

So we end up with the scraps of the food that’s coming into the city. And, and that was disgusting. So, um, I think the first way I know I’m improving the environment in these communities is by recycling all of the residential food waste. We can actually rebuild our soil and in partnership with Green City Forest, we’re growing hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh produce that the residents can have that came right from the farm from farm to table in the public housing community.

So that’s the first way in which we’re improving the environment is we’re rebuilding the soil, which is able to capture carbon, but also able to produce fresh produce fruits and vegetables that residents can get for free. Um, and then another way is. We’re reducing the amount of food scraps that go to the trash.

And if we take the food scraps from the trash, we can reduce the rodent populations, but at the same time, make the quality of life inside the building a lot better by removing as much of those food scraps as possible. So. Um, that’s another way in which we’re improving the environment. And then, uh, we actually, we’re enemies with New York City rats.

And, um, we, we have an ongoing war with them right now. And they know me as the fearless leader that they’re afraid of. And I’m afraid of the really, really big ones that carry pizzas downstairs. But

Verda: whole pizzas.

Domingo: Yeah. So instead of poisoning rats and getting exterminators to poison green spaces, compost power actually works by, um, keeping gardens, prunes, keeping grass cut low, collapsing rat tunnels, keeping track of rodent activities.

And we partner up with. pest management at public housing and give them the data that we collect so they can have more targeted approaches to where they apply pesticides if they need them, but it reduces the amount of time they have to spend, um, applying poisons in, in green spaces and public gardens and, and housing, and they can focus their energy on the inside of the building, which is another way I feel like we’re improving.

These, these environments by making them look aesthetically pleasing and increasing human activity, which reduces the rat population and the rat activity. They don’t want to be in places where humans are. Um, and if they know that our intention is to keep this space clean, tidy and active, then the rats kind of go to places where we aren’t there.

And I think those are the ways in which we’re improving the environment on top of, um, reducing the methane emissions by reducing the amount of material going to landfills because landfills usually end up right near other marginalized communities. So making sure that that the waste from this marginalized.

Verda: It’s true. And I actually have a number of facts here. I’ll, I’ll rattle off a couple of composting food and yard waste instead of burying it in landfills reduces methane emissions and in some states like California, landfills are the largest source of [00:20:00] methane emissions and guess what is in a lot of landfills?

Jon: Food,

Verda: food waste, Yep. A lot of, a lot of organic waste. Uh, let’s see. Food waste is the single most common material landfilled in the United States. It’s around a quarter of what’s in landfills.

Jon: I think people think that I can throw food away cause it’ll just decompose.

Domingo: That’s really what they think it’s, and it’s part of the culture and this design that we have in the city of this set it and forget it with waste, right?

We put it into the black bag, like clockwork, Department of Sanitation comes and they get rid of that waste. And for us as residents, we’re like, yeah, the waste is being dealt with. We’re managing it, we’re putting it where it needs to be, but we don’t really pay attention to what happens afterwards because we now have a new trash bag that we have to put into that container.

So, um, I think part of the composting process and why I love composting is we can show people how much work it actually takes to recycle just the food waste, right? And if they start keeping track of how much food waste they bring to the compost site, they can really keep track of the amount of money they’re wasting.

Um, and if you’re wasting money, you’re also like just buying things just to buy them. So the goal behind composting, which is what I love, is that, you know, in the future, each household should have a dra like a dramatic reduction in food waste being produced. And if they do that, they can reduce like the waste that they’re producing in their household.

Um, you’d be surprised how light the waste becomes when you remove all of the organic matter and you’re just left with What is inert and then recycling material. Um, and then you can get people to start realizing that the material they’re getting, the bread they’re getting is probably not the best bread.

If it’s going moldy before they have a chance to eat it. Um, if you’re not eating the tomatoes cause they taste bad, then maybe you shouldn’t buy those tomatoes. And if we can start to change that behavior, then we can change the market. And the consumers, the residents will go to the, to the. the supermarket and say, Hey, your kale is disgusting.

Your spinach is disgusting. We need better quality. This is not good. And we know because we have a garden that gives us food during the growing season. So, um, that’s what I love about compost is we’re exposing the system that has been hidden from us in plain sight, but we’re also getting people to see, um, the waste that they produce and how they can actually save money by producing less waste.

Verda: I did want to ask. Are you spending some time with raising awareness as well? Is that part of your compost power campaign?

Domingo: Yeah, I think, uh, part of what we say is making compost cool. That’s our slogan. Um, and part of that is when residents, especially public housing residents, but any resident who has not been exposed to the composting or our style of composting.

They think of rats, they think of heavy odors, they think of landfills. And the reason why I chose the slogan making compost cool is to show people that when you come to a compost site, it should be really clean. It should be really organized. There should be no odors because composting by definition is an aerobic.

function of decomposing organic matter. If it’s anaerobic, that means it’s a landfill. You’re producing methane, and in some cases you can do that, um, intentionally, like what DSNY does with the biodigesters at Newtown Creek. They’re intentionally creating methane with the hopes of capturing that and using it as fuel.

And that sense is good. But, um, what I’m showing people is composting is not that. Composting is clean, it’s aerobic, and it actually makes the community look better once you start to bring people into the site and they realize, oh, this doesn’t stink. Oh, there’s actually no rats. They actually don’t like rats on this site.

Um, then you can start to see kids coming. You start to see adults coming. They want to work with the material. They want to know why is this compost mound steaming? Why do we see smoke coming out of this mound? And then we can explain that this is just water vapor. So I think. That is our like constant training people.

And the best way to do it is by showing them what a, what a real compost site looks like, um, and showing them that this is actually something that creates a resource, right? Composting creates a resource. So for us, that’s the campaign. A lot of the pushback and communities that we’re trying to build new sites is this is going to bring rats.

So part of it is taking our success stories and working with, you know, The partners that we have in the existing sites, we have nine sites now throughout New York City. Eight of them are in public housing communities. One is in Williamsburg and that’s our flagship site where we train all of our staff.

Um, but part of it is any site you come to, it’s going to look clean. It’s going to be fun. We have opportunities for volunteers. All year rounds. And we don’t stop until people stop [00:25:00] eating. That’s really how we’re getting that word out.

Jon: What I think is amazing, Virta, I don’t know if you’ve noticed how many times Domingo has said the word design and, and system, right?

I mean, clearly you were fascinated with systems as a young, as a young boy and you are, you know, Creating new systems now as a young adult, which I think is amazing, but you’re building awareness of composting and disenfranchised communities that the same communities that you grew up in, where you said, I was too busy figuring out what I was going to eat to worry about saving the planet.

And so as you work to build awareness in those communities, do you get that kind of pushback?

Domingo: I definitely do. I get this. And in the beginning. You know, I came from the New York City Compost Project where we would go to a street, you know, in Crown Heights and Franklin and Eastern Parkway. And we would staff a food scrap drop off from, uh, eight in the morning to about 11 in the morning.

And it was this, this small window where residents would come and bring their scraps. And it was really, it was really successful. Um, and then I went, when I started Compost Power, I tried that system of let’s have a short time every Saturday. Every Friday residents can bring their scraps and the pushback from residents was Look, we don’t have time to come in this small window.

We all work different jobs. There’s a lot of frontline community that live in public housing. They work in the night shift. They’re shoveling snow and it’s snowing. They don’t have days to take off. People are working in restaurants like I used to where as soon as they call you, if it’s your day off and they need you, you’re going to say yes, because you don’t want to lose hours in the future.

Um, so I got a lot of pushback. So I kind of adjusted and I’m like, all right, cool. Let’s put toters. In near the compost site and let’s leave it open 24 seven. So that’s one way in which the community pushed back and said, this doesn’t make sense. We need 24 seven access to fit the evolving doors of the life of a public housing resident.

So we did that. Um, another one was we, we don’t have money for food. Um, how are we going to give you scraps if we don’t have money for food in the first place, you know, that is the main reason why I went back to my roots and partner with green city forest, because they’re solving that we’re growing food for free.

We’re growing, uh, and we’re giving this to the residents for free. And who’s doing this work is young adults, which is the next step. Um, the next pushback of, we don’t care about recycling waste. Some of some people do, but in the most, Most like best case scenario, the residents, like, I don’t care about saving the planet.

Can we create jobs? Can we improve the quality of life for the young adults that are coming up? And that’s why we decided, I decided to hire mostly from green city forest graduates who are young adults that came through that program, who live in the public housing community, who understand the culture, because it’s a culture difference.

Um, it’s 15 New Yorkers. live in public housing. So if you’re going to serve that big population of 500, 000 people in climbing, right? That’s just the minimum number that live in public housing. You’re going to serve them. You’re going to serve them with the people who come from that community. And I think that’s another way in which we get communities to buy in is.

They’re creating jobs for our young adults. They’re educating our young adults. And those are the like really pushback we get when it comes to rats. Um, I’m constantly telling the community gardeners that are in the public housing campuses, like, let us know if you have rat issues in your garden, we’ll come, we’ll collapse the tunnels.

We’ll keep track of the activity. We’ll prune it. We’ll weed if you need us to pull weeds out of the ground. So the idea is like compost power. We, we compost, but we also. We design so, um, you know, there’s one community garden and polo grounds in Harlem where she said like composting is great. Thank you.

Her name is Ms. Williams. And she accepted us into her community garden, but she’s like, I need, I need help watering my garden. I can’t water my garden. It’s so hard, the access to the water so far away. So compost power designed an underground line to bring water and drip irrigation all the way to her garden bed.

So what I love about compost power is. You know, the different systems that I had, I was addicted to new jobs. I was addicted to new systems, addicted to new information, um, and compost powers, like in the center of so many different disparities in these communities that I can spend a week doing carpentry, I can do some plumbing and set up some drip irrigation.

I can work on solar panels and make sure there’s sustainable electricity. And that’s really what I love about it is. I meet the community where they are. There are different needs and I show them that I am a resource for them. I am not someone who’s coming to take over their land, but someone to show them how valuable that land is and give them a sense of pride of we [00:30:00] are public housing and we are New York city.

And that’s part of. I think that’s the reason why I won the David Prize in 2020, that 200, 000 prize. My idea was to bring composting to public housing and a lot of the pushback for that was, no, we’re already composting in New York City. DSNY is doing it. The New York City Compost Project is doing it, but I had firsthand experience that public housing was left out of that equation for a really long time.

And as a public housing resident, it always frustrated me. It was something that I always told my mentor, David Buckle, let’s build more sites in public housing. Let’s bring the information to them. And he said, we just don’t have time. We don’t have, you know, we’re fighting to keep funding for this one site.

How can we build more human powered sites? And, um, I think I was like, Stuck at Red Hook and trying to keep the site going and trying to keep David’s mission going. So when they laid me off in 2020, after five years of blood, sweat, and tears, I decided, you know what, I’m not going to look for a new job. I’m not going to go and find another system to master.

This is what makes me content. And composting is the first thing in my entire life that made me feel like I am where I’m supposed to be. I was finally a fish in his fish tank. Um, so for me. That was, you know, it’s cool to me. I’m passionate about it. And I feel like that residents see that and they know, wow, this guy used to be a, a NYCHA, uh, resident.

He used to live in the same conditions we live in. And now he’s an entrepreneur that are building sites and creating career opportunities for the people that come in behind me, teaching the next generation and showing them that I can’t do this alone. And I need the input. I need the information that they have.

And I call it my mycelial network. Anywhere I go, I’m sharing information and I’m trying to get information from other people so we can become a better civilization. So I don’t only serve NYCHA. I also consult for the general New York city community, but I also consult people all over the world. I want to come Germany, Japan, um, Vermont, New Hampshire.

I’ve had people from all over all corners of the world, France that come to learn from me and then take these ideas back to where they live. Um, I like to tell people I am freedom of information. If you ask me a question and I have the answer, I will give it to you. He’s for you. Domingo

Jon: is for you, Merida.

Domingo: Yes,

Verda: it’s a great story. And you’re a role model. You’re a mentor. It’s incredible.

Jon: I think what blows my mind is who would have thought that everything that Domingo has just described to us and explained to us, whoever would have thought that it would have come from composting, right? I think that it’s almost like I feel composting is the wrong word for what.

You’re doing, you know, I think that I read an article and they were calling you like the, the compost champion of New York or something. And I’m like, that’s not what he is. He’s not just composting. He’s building communities. He’s providing jobs. He’s lifting people out of. Depression and disenfranchised communities, which we all know in the world of sustainability, they’re the first ones to suffer and they suffer the most.

And that’s where you’re having your impact. And I just don’t, I don’t know if there’s got to be a better word for it, but like, Dogo, you’re doing so much more than composting, you know,

Domingo: it’s amazing. It’s fun. It’s fun. I, I love what I do and, and I, I tend to tell people I’m just a critical thinker. That’s what I am.

Verda: Okay, so the facts corner over here. I wanna kick off the next question with a few facts. There has been a voluntary. Organic waste recycling program in place in New York City since 2013. But to this day, I think only half of New York City residents are able to request bins, and of those that do, maybe 10 percent, maybe that number’s a little higher, of New Yorkers actually use them.

And so a lot of New Yorkers Take their waste to places like farmer’s markets and things like that. Composting became mandatory in 2023 in a couple of areas like Queens and Brooklyn, and it’s going to expand throughout the city. But, you know, there’s something that we’ve been talking a little bit about on past episodes about this idea of socialization, like people need to understand how composting works, like need to think that it’s not really that hard.

And then you need legislation, right? And you need those things kind of hand in hand to really get things moving as quickly as they [00:35:00] need to move for us to, to really make some progress in our, in all of these challenges that we face. What do you think about the, the legislation and how is that going to affect compost power?

Domingo: So the legislation was a big win. I think it was, um, thankful to the council members that we have, um, specifically, um, Sandy Nouris, council member Hanif. Um, and, and many others, but, um, thankfully we had an administration that wasn’t against this rule, right? We had a mayor who he wasn’t really excited about it, but he wasn’t against it.

And I think that’s something where if you don’t have much criticism or you don’t have much feedback for why this would be bad for New York, then kind of let it happen and see what happens. Right. So I think it’s a big win that. We signed into law that organic waste should not go to landfill. And I think that’s, what’s important about this legislation is compost going to, uh, food scraps, organic waste, going to landfill, that should be the last worst case scenario.

And that’s what this law, um, kind of diverts, right? It’s like, okay, you have to have a method of recycling. your organic waste. And I think that’s important. What that means for New York City was, you know, all businesses, all residents have to have a way to recycle their organic waste, whether it be composting, whether it be through a biogas program, whether you have a hauler taking it to a compost facility, everyone has to do it.

And I think that’s a big win. And that’s New York City saying We care. We care about the environment. We want to become sustainable. Um, the problem is we still haven’t found the funding to match the legislation. I think that’s going to be the next step going forward is working with the mayor, um, to figure out how can we do this the most effective way?

How can we also prioritize the education and engagement that community sites actually provide? Um, Part of, you know, New York City, the way New York City ended its year in 2023 was a big massive budget cut to the New York City compost project, which was the community compost site where I got my start right where I first learned about community composting.

So that was a big hit for New York City. Um, but there were a lot of stories that said community compost is in jeopardy. What are we going to do about community composting? But I want everyone listening to this podcast to know that community composting is not dead. It will never die. Um, it’s the city funded community composting that has been hit and, you know, we should definitely have some city funded programs going into the future, but community composting is very much still alive.

We will be here forever because we are grassroots organizations and we are like seeds that they buried. They forgot that we were seats. Um, but, uh, I think for compost pile, the way it affects us is, um, we have to kind of change what we do. And part of that was changing the science on our sites. If the department of sanitation has this citywide smart bin that’s going around where you can put your organic waste in that bin 24 hours a day, and you can put meat, Dairy bone.

Um, I think their rules are if it grows, it goes. And I kind of love that motto. And in a small scale composting sites like, um, the New York City compost project and, um, compost power. Traditionally, we said we can’t process meat dairy bone because it takes too long to break down. It increases rodent pressure.

And, um, for a long time, um, You know, I’m like, all right, I’m not going to touch meat, dairy, bone, let’s not do it. But when they changed the law, I figured that if we’re going to make things easy for New York City, then it has to be a universal set of rules. There has to be a, you can drop your scraps at a community compost site.

Or smart bin or a brown bin or a micro hauler. And we should have a universal set of rules of what can go in and what can’t. So for compost power, we started to accept meat, dairy bone in our small systems, and we’ve proven that we can still process without rats, without odors, as long as we are taking the appropriate steps to keep it aerobic and we’re using enough carbon.

And so it changed the way we operate. Um, for seven years, I wasn’t processing meat, dairy, bone. I actually said, you can’t do it in a small system. And because of sanitation and city council and community members changing that legislation, I wanted to get ahead of the curb and make it easier for the residents I serve.

Because some, uh, like in Queens, we, we serve at Astoria houses. There’s a smart bin that DSNY collects, um, a few times a week on the perimeter of the campus. So I decided like, I can’t tell them to only bring certain scraps to the compost site. But then bring the rest to DSNY. That’s an [00:40:00] injustice to that resident.

And now you’re separating three streams of waste into four streams of waste or five streams of waste. So, um, that’s how we changed it to make it easier for them. If it grows, it goes, bring it to us. We’ll process it. We’ll handle it. Don’t worry about it. Um, and then another way it affects us is, um, traditionally we didn’t do much outreach.

With the DSNY system because it’s a centralized system. We’re more grassroots oriented spread throughout the city. But now that the legislation is there and DSNY is going to put these bins all over the city, compost power has been helping to do some of that outreach to teach these residents in the public housing communities, how to use these bins.

What they are, why they’re there, and it kind of changed the tone a little bit, where I’m like, okay, DSNY is doing smart bins, um, some of the material might not be getting composted, but I can tell residents that, hey, if you’re going to throw your, your food scraps in the trash, You might as well put it in this smart bin.

You might as well take it to Newtown Creek where it helps to clean our drinking water and send it back into the river as gray water. But on top of that, we can, you know, further the science, what can we do with scraps? So, um, the legislation made me change my philosophy a bit. On, uh, composting, where I know that it’s as important to have centralized composting systems funded by the government as it is to have grassroots organizations.

Jon: Yeah.

Domingo: We won’t make it to zero waste in New York City until We have a diverse network, right? It’s diversity that always, um, makes it to the end of the race. It’s always going to be diversity. So if the city’s doing hard and their funding is cut and they can’t haul from certain bins in the future, there are enough community systems in New York city, where we can take some of that load off.

We can say, don’t worry, we’ll collect from these smart bins for a while. Um, so I think for me. That’s really how it’s changed it before it was community composting, only community composting, hand powered composting. And now that the legislation has changed to meet that capacity to process all of the waste in New York city, I had to get real with myself and realize that.

We need DSNY, we need community, we need the New York City compost project. We need, uh, community farms. We need parks. Um, we need as many people in on this battle as possible because it’s not until we all get together and agree, this is important and it doesn’t matter how we do it. We’re just not sending food scraps to landfill anymore.

Then and only then can we really make an impact on the climate. If everybody in the world, all countries got together and said, none of us are landfilling waste, we’re all doing something with our waste that’s sustainable. We can slow down climate change by 30%. And that’s a number that no one’s talking about.

That’s why I’m so passionate about it.

Verda: Oh, you are so right. We need to talk about it.

Jon: You know, anybody who’s just listening and it doesn’t have the privilege of watching Domingo, it’s like, Verda, can you see like when he like he lights up when he starts talking about some of this stuff?

Verda: Yeah, his

Jon: demeanor changes.

Verda: It’s getting me very excited about composting. And I truly hope that New York City also feels the same way that you got to work together.

Jon: I think before you can save the planet, you have to save your community. Right. And that’s what you’re doing. And I think it’s interesting in the beginning, Domingo, do you think that you were more focused on the technology of composting and learning that, and now listening to you talk about legislation and accessibility is your.

Awareness heightened. Are you really thinking bigger picture now?

Domingo: Yeah, I think in the beginning it was we need to process these food scraps. We need to do it in a way where we don’t have rats. Um, and we need to make a really great volunteer experience for volunteers who come. So they can come back and we can build a coalition of people who actually care about this.

Now is my soul focus. That was the only thing I was focused on from 2015 to 2020. And I feel like in 2020, when all of my work was just taken away from me and they’re just like, Well, you’re laid off. We don’t have the funding. Um, at that point, I really had to think about it and say, was my tunnel vision getting in my way if I were to take a step back and look at the big picture, the whole system approach many, many years ago, right?

When 2017, when David was still with me, if I had that. Time to take a step back when I care about these systems differently. And I think it has changed. I’ve become more of like, all right, what’s best for everyone, right? Not only what’s best for public housing, not only how can we improve the systems, but also like as a race, how can we elevate?

Um, as a country, how can we elevate, how can we unify each other? Um, and you know, when I [00:45:00] first started, I would get really aggressive and really like, no, this is the right way to do it. And now as I’m like, I guess getting wiser and getting older and aging and, and, you know, maturing, I’m starting to realize that sometimes you have to take a step back.

And listen and take everything in so you can appreciate where all sides come from. Like just recently when they cut the funding to the New York City compost project, everybody was going crazy. Oh no, community composting is dead. And meanwhile, I was in a room thinking and looking at the budget, like, wow.

How did the mayor even make a budget with the deficit that we have? How, how can he decide what to cut? So it makes me, uh, take a different approach and I respect how hard it is, even for mayor Adams, even for council members to try and meet New York city residents. And, and bring them to a place where they feel like, all right, we’re, we’re making it, we’re doing something.

Um, and I think I never used to think like that. I always used to think, Oh, they don’t care. They hate composting. They hate community composting. And now I’m like, there’s, there’s a lot more going on that we’re not paying attention to. And until we pay attention to the whole budget, not just composting, but the whole budget, education, city cleaning, um, Health and wellbeing, mental health, until we look at the whole budget and try to figure out how to fix it, we can’t scream at politicians and say, why aren’t you funding this?

And that’s why when they make these budget cuts, I’m like, it’s all right. We’re going to figure it out. New York city residents are going to figure it out. Um, and I think that’s, that’s a different tone. And I used to be a, like, I used to get really depressed and I used to feel like my back was against the wall and I had to fight for survival and I had to prove why composting by hand was important.

And now I feel like I just have to bring people together and figure out how we can improve these systems. So I’m matured and. I feel like I’m a lot calmer and more zen.

Verda: I love it. Now you’ve accomplished so much in a very short time. I’d love to ask what is next? What is your big dream for compost power or maybe beyond compost?

Domingo: Yeah. So I think, um, what I, what I want to do is I want to make sure we have, uh, Every single New York City housing campus has some sort of recycling, organic waste diversion, food being produced. So I want to kind of spread these seeds throughout New York City’s public housing campus, as well as other entities.

And, um, I don’t know. I think in the future, I want to eventually go to college to learn about the legislation to because, you know, I’m self taught. I just read a lot. I use all of my spare time to study things that I care about. But I think, um, I’m going to have to become a lawyer and, and really, really get into policy, really get into legislation at the community level.

Um, and that’s something residents don’t, you know, we don’t realize is we pay attention only when there’s a big race, like a presidential race or, um, the mayor or the governor. And we have to pay attention way before it gets to that, right? Like council members, um, committee heads, committee chairs, these are the things we have to.

You know, learn about and learn these systems. And also I feel like every New Yorker should know how complex and difficult the budget in New York city is. And that’s something that I really see myself diving into in the future is figuring out like, how can we create a budget that actually works? Um, and also community composting, how can we solidify its presence throughout the United States and all over the world as a means of, you Changing systems, that grassroots effort.

So for me, building out compost power to continue to educate and change the story when it comes to composting, and then afterwards actually sitting in these rooms with these legislators and figuring out how those brains work. What, what’s this, what’s the system.

Verda: Sounds like you might be running for mayor someday.

At

Domingo: least it’s a hard job. It’s a hard job. I have to give credit to the people who’ve held that position. Cause it’s not easy. Yeah.

Jon: You have empathy. You have empathy. That’s important.

Domingo: Yeah. Domingo, you’re awesome.

Jon: What an inspiration. You’ve made my day for sure. At least, maybe my week, my month. I don’t know.

Verda: Completely inspiring.

Jon: Yeah. Thank you, Domingo, for spending some time with us.

Verda: Thank you.

Jon: To hear your story is awesome. I’m super excited that we have an opportunity to share it.

Domingo: Yeah. Um, thank you for having me and I’m always excited to kind of share my passion and hopefully people listening get excited and They want to figure out where their composting goes, but, um, it takes just asking those questions, those tough questions.

Um, and what I tell my people is if you’re asking the question, it’s an important question. No matter how silly it may seem to you, it’s a really important question. [00:50:00] And you should ask those questions to get that information.

Jon: Verta, this conversation with Domingo. Went even better than I thought it was going to go because this young man is completely, totally inspirational to me.

I’m blown away.

Verda: Yeah. I, I wish the viewers could have seen him. He was recording from his car and he did have these headphones on and he had the. Best smile. He, it was infectious. Like his energy and his passion was absolutely infectious. I think I was smiling the entire interview.

Jon: Yeah. You know, that sort of passion is just something that, um, I think it’s, you’re in rarefied air when you’re talking to somebody that, because he exudes it and you and I, I think we both picked up on it, which was, which was really cool.

I think that, you know, like what we talked about when we were talking before this episode, I was hoping that we would talk about as important as composting is. I was hoping that the conversation would get bigger than just composting and would you agree it did?

Verda: I don’t know. Did he? I Did we send him some notes?

Because he knew exactly what to talk about in terms of by design, right? I loved, you know, that these housing projects are designed by design. They’re designed to be ugly, right? Uh, for waste not to be picked up in certain neighborhoods. It’s all by design. And even, you know, now what he is doing and how he’s improving his community is also by his design, which I think is Definitely a step in the right direction.

So I loved how he was In his mind was putting it all together as he was talking to us. But I think we just mentioned that we were designers and he, he came full circle.

Jon: Yeah, he did keep referring to design and systems design. So I was not expecting to hear him talk about systems, but that is, that is, His trigger he’s a sister his mind is wired for systems management and understanding systems and so the composting is perfect for him and the fact that he’s an individual who gets bored doing the same thing over and over and so to be able to move around and do different things is what keeps him engaged i i thought that was so cool to talk about.

Verda: I just love his story, how he found his passion. He just answered a flyer. He was kind of like very down at a very down point in his life and, and saw this flyer and, and answered it and his life was transformed and he’s now an entrepreneur, a businessman. He’s got employees. It’s pretty incredible.

Jon: I know we’ve said in the past, Virta, you know, your job is to take this conversation and.

Turn it face it boards design, you know, and he made your job a little bit easier this episode, but I’m curious, you know, how would you turn this conversation? I know you mentioned that the way that these. this affordable housing and these projects are designed, they’re designed to be ugly, they’re designed for all these things they shouldn’t be designed for.

But how else would you turn this conversation with Domingo into a design challenge or a design conversation? I’m kind of putting you on the spot, so sorry about that.

Verda: I know, it’s not even the hot seat. I would love to take a tour of these facilities and sites. They’re right there, they’re local. It’s not like this compost is being hauled.

Half a mile away or 10 miles away if they’re if this composting is happening right there So I suppose I would love to bring this conversation around to how what do these sites look like and how are they? Transforming the residents that live right there and that are walking past this these facilities every day.

Jon: Yeah, it’s You know, to hear him talk about just some of the initial challenges that people wanted to be a part of it, but, you know, when you’re composting hours are when people are working, you know, nobody can drop their compost off. So he redesigned that system to accommodate their workday, which I thought was pretty cool.

Verda: Yeah, I love how he’s. It’s constantly re engineering everything and rethinking, thinking from a systems approach himself and how things work.

Jon: Verdi, when you and I go on tour later this year to visit Bayou Dave and ride in his boat, um, we know now we have a stop in, in New York, uh, to visit with, uh, with Domingo.

And, and visit his composting. And I love that it’s led into community gardening. I mean, God, I can go on and on talking about Domingo. So.

Verda: Right. And the bigger picture too, he, uh, you know, I asked a few questions about legislation. [00:55:00] Domingo is hyper aware of it. He already understood the issues, the problems, um, the setbacks and how his own organization is going to fit into that big picture.

And I truly see him. In politics someday.

Jon: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, he’s, uh, you can tell his community looks up to him. He’s a leader right now, which, again, as you and I want to franchise by you, Dave, I think we want to franchise Domingo as well.

Verda: Yeah.

Jon: Awesome. I’m so inspired.

Verda: Same here. So, John, we’re trying to get this hot seat going.

I know you had me in the hot seat last week and I had you in the hot seat the week before and very soon we’re going to have some special guests on our hot seat.

Jon: Well, we do have a special guest today. Come on.

Verda: Okay. Oh gosh. Sorry, Rob. And Rob’s listening to this whole thing. Rob, you are special. You’re very special.

Jon: Thank you. Rob puts up with us.

Verda: Yeah. And Rob is our producer. He sits here with us for all of our interviews. He helps us schedule them and, and all of the backend producing that happens, which I know is a lot of work, but Rob, if you don’t mind. We would love to put you on the hot seat for a hot minute.

Jon: Rob, are you ready for the hot seat?

Rob: I was born ready.

Verda: All right. Okay.

Jon: Oh, okay. Suck it to them, Berta.

Verda: First question. What is the number one thing that you think will move the needle to address climate change?

Rob: I think people are going to be forced into it, unfortunately. I think they’re, it’s going to be losing their luxuries, like the, or their creature comforts.

And once I think the majority of people’s lives get Uncomfortable to a point of like, there’s no excuse. Uh, it may be too late, but that’s, what’s going to push the needle.

Verda: I think that’s a great answer. I think it basically you’re saying that the number one thing is that people need to do less, do more with less.

Yeah.

Rob: Yeah.

Verda: Okay. What is your superpower for. Fighting climate change or, or what would you like your superpower to be?

Rob: Yeah, I think I would like my superpower to be time management and organizational management. Like we recycle at my house. But If I had more time to be able to understand the intricacies of it, like I, I’m constantly told, like, thank goodness I have someone in my house that like knows some of the rules better than me, but she’s like, you know, you can’t recycle that particular piece of plastic in our session.

You can’t throw out that. Pizza box that has cheese still on it. You can’t, you know, there are little things that I learn and then, you know, next time, hopefully I do that, but I do think my, my superpower that I’m building up to, I’m in my origin stage right now, this is number one of the trilogy, I’m learning all of the little things that make it easier.

The next time I go and do it.

Verda: Sounds great. Okay, last question. This one kind of leads, leads in from there. What have you composted today? And I know we talked a little bit about the fact that you’re down in L. A. and you’re just getting your compost bins.

Rob: Out here in the desert, we need a better system inside of my house.

But we’ve got a little bag. Near the door that, uh, my banana peel went in to then go into the compost later today.

Verda: All right. Well, now we know what Rob had for breakfast as well as what he composted.

Jon: Two for one. I have one last question for Rob while he’s on the hot seat. You ready, Rob? Yes.

Rob: Yes. Okay.

Jon: Who do you like better, me or Verda?

Rob: Wow, well, that’s all the time we have today.

It changes day by day, whoever, whoever emails me first. How about that?

Verda: There you go. Whoever’s quickest to answer, reply, make your job easier.

Jon: And that, ladies and gentlemen, that’s the hot seat.

Verda: Oh, John asked that question at green build of everyone. All right. Well, that’s a wrap. Cool. That’s a wrap. Thanks to Domingo for joining us.

We’d love to hear about the issues that you’d like us to address. Be sure to let us know by leaving a positive review wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also ask your hot seat question there. Breaks and Dishes is a surround podcast by Sandow Design Group.

Jon: Thanks to the team behind the scenes. This episode is produced by Rob Schulte and edited by Rob Adler.

Thanks to master and dynamic, the official headphones of the surround network. You can hear other podcasts like this one at surround podcasts. [01:00:00] com.

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Break Some Dishes

Defying the rules to inspire design. Under the lens of creativity, Verda Alexander and Jon Strassner explore the environmental crises that face the global community.

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