On Saturday, June 27, I traveled from Philadelphia to New York City to install a 55-gallon barrel biodigester at a community garden in Queens. We were invited by María Paz Ordoñez, an activist whose passion is teaching immigrant communities about sustainability and public health. María works at CommonpointNY, a nonprofit organization that sponsored this workshop. She organized a day-long event for the Ecuadorian community about resilience to climate change, and this 3-hour workshop was part of it!
Unfortunately, on the afternoon of the workshop, it started pouring rain. We were concerned that no one would attend the workshop, and Veronica (our host at the community garden) was ready to cancel and postpone until a later date. But María was determined to hold the event and convinced us to stick to the plan. She even brought a tent to protect attendees from the rain, and ordered pizza to entice people to brave the elements.
Members of the Mujeres en Movimiento community garden pose by a mural of a hummingbird, with symbols representing corn and pyramids
In the end, eight people attended the workshop, including several volunteers from the community garden and other neighbors who were interested in renewable energy. They asked lots of great questions and helped assemble the barrel digester. I was excited to tell them that New York City generates 500 million cubic feet of biogas every year at its Newtown Creek wastewater treatment facility – enough to run the plant itself, and heat over 5,000 nearby homes. Not only that, but New York State has some of the most forward-thinking laws about biodigesters, including a law that biodigesters receiving less than 1,000 pounds of waste per week do not require any permit. This was welcome information to Veronica and the rest of the volunteers at the community garden, who had understandable concerns about operating a biodigester in a crowded urban neighborhood.
After assembling the digester, we filled it with 8 gallons of digestate from my own biodigester, plus water from a neighbor’s spigot. The rain and humidity had affected some of the caulk seals on the tank, and it will definitely need some re-caulking before the biodigester is fully operational. Also, Veronica doesn’t yet have a way to use the gas – Solar CITIES has exhausted our inventory of biogas stoves, and we need to submit a new order to Puxin! If you’re interested in purchasing a gas stove, please comment below 🙂