Support environmental issues locally in the Forest Hills area with FHGT.
Contact fhgtinc@gmail.com and sign up for updates, follow us on Facebook, and join our monthly Zoom meeting.
Composting - FHGT has a long history of advocating for collection and composting of food waste, and for making curbside composting mandatory and widely known. Reopened municipal compost drop-off sites, like the one in Forest Hills, are especially important as the Adams administration failed to educate New Yorkers about the city's curbside collection of organic waste.
For three years, FHGT volunteers ran a weekly food scrap drop off site in partnership with Queens Botanical Gardens and Commonpoint Queens, from August 2021 to May 2024. It along with many other food scrap drop off sites around the city were closed due to Mayor Adam's budget cuts.
Educating Students - Ask us to do a climate change presentation at your school. We have presented at PS 196, the Reform Temple of Forest Hills, Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School (MELS) HS, and Bronx HS of Science.
Advocacy – We advocate for city and statewide environmental legislation in partnership with many groups. We have endorsed candidates for the City Council (Lynn Schulman for Council District 29 and Paul Pogozelski in CD 30), as well as for State Assembly and State Senate races. We are working with Councilmember Schulman on planting trees that were allocated by Participatory Budgeting.
Community Building - Meet civically involved members of diverse central Queens networks and communities through Breaking Bread, Building Bonds, a series of facilitated weekend lunch events.
Coalitions - FHGT is a member of the Save our Compost coalition, the Borough President’s Urban Sustainability Committee, and the Central Queens Against Hate project.
Yellowstone Beautification Project - For over five years, we have maintained a landscaping and beautification project on Yellowstone Boulevard between Burns and Austin Street at the LIRR overpass, with regular volunteer events.
Metropolitan Avenue Street Care Project - We partner with business group Metro Village to host volunteer clean up events along this busy street.
Upcoming FHGT activities
Check this section regularly for upcoming events!
Contact Elected Officials
Click here for a list of elected officials representing our area, and their contact info.
FAQ: Composting food scraps & yard waste
One third of what New Yorkers throw away is food scraps and yard waste!
Visit the NYC Dept. of Sanitation organic waste collection program.
All Queens residential buildings - single family homes and apartment buildings - receive a weekly Curbside Composting collection on the same day as their recycling pick-up.
- Leaf and yard waste separation from trash is now mandatory.
- Separation of food waste and food-soiled paper from trash is now mandatory.
- All NYC residents are subject to fines for failing to separate organics.
Find out more about how and what to compost here.
Store your scraps at home in reusable containers or plastic bags, in either the refrigerator or freezer. If you live in an apartment building that does not participate directly in the City's food scrap collection program, you can take it to:
NYC generates 1 million tons of greenhouse gas from municipal landfills annually. Landfill waste in NYC is 41% organic material that could be turned into compost. Organic material that is buried in a landfill and decomposes in the absence of oxygen - anaerobically - produces the powerful greenhouse gas methane.
When organic material is composted, decomposing with oxygen present, much of the carbon is captured in solid form before it can even escape as carbon dioxide gas. This is one of the simplest and most cost-effective methods of slowing down climate change we can find.