A tenant dug through the trash of his Queens apartment building on a recent Tuesday afternoon, doing a dirty task that his neighbors couldn’t be bothered to do themselves: separating garbage from organic waste.

Jose Zapata, 78, told Gothamist outside his seven-unit building in Corona that he was doing a favor for his super, who wanted to avoid a fine from the Department of Sanitation for failure to separate compost.

“I’m not supposed to be out here,” Zapata said. “But so he doesn't get a fine, I take everything out of the container.”

Although there was a brown compost bin next to the regular garbage cans outside the building, Zapata found the waste mixed together. Cardboard boxes were stacked to the top of a black trash bin meant for regular waste, while plastic and bottles were mixed with food scraps in the compost bin.

Zapata's super had reason to fear a fine. On April 15, inspectors wrote 486 tickets to buildings for failing to compost. It was most on any day single since composting became mandatory for all residents in 2024, according to city data.

A sanitation inspector would simply have to open the bins at Zapata's building to find evidence for a summons.

“They throw the cardboard, the bottles, everything together,” he said. “Sometimes I have to be careful, because if I don’t pay attention, I’ll cut myself on a broken bottle mixed in with the food.”

Zapata’s concern about a fine was justified. Inspectors had issued the building next door a $25 fine for failing to separate organic waste on April 11 — part of a citywide enforcement boost as New Yorkers continue to compost at a dismal rate. As of Friday, the sanitation department has issued 4,209 tickets to building owners for failure to compost since April 13. That’s nearly double the total number of tickets issued for failure to compost for the rest of the year.

Participation in the city's mandatory compost program remains low.

Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Finding people who don't comply with the mandatory composting program isn’t hard. Just 2.4% of residential waste that could be composted was actually diverted from landfills in 2025, according to a report released by the watchdog Independent Budget Office earlier this month.

The fines start at $25 for smaller buildings and can climb to $300 for large buildings caught mixing organics in regular waste multiple times. Inspectors have doled out $104,000 in composting fines in 2026.

Sanitation department spokesperson Joshua Goodman disputed the notion his department was in the midst of a ticketing blitz.

“While enforcement is up, this is not a ‘ticketing blitz.’ We are conducting routine enforcement to ensure compliance with the law,” he wrote in a statement.

Goodman said that inspectors are looking through trash bags mostly in high-density areas where there’s no evidence of an effort to compost.

“Our enforcement personnel need evidence to write a summons and yes, that generally involves looking through trash, just as we have been doing for decades to enforce recycling rules,” Goodman wrote.

Manhattan buildings accounted for 28% of all composting tickets issued last week. Enforcement has been concentrated in certain neighborhoods, including Corona, Washington Heights and Highbridge in the Bronx.

The city’s mandatory curbside compost program was a signature achievement of previous Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. The program is the largest of its kind in the nation and is intended to improve the environment by diverting organic waste from landfills.

But data shows that participation rates in the new program sharply declined after April 2025, when then-First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro ordered enforcement be paused as Adams geared up for a re-election bid.

Sanitation Commissioner Gregory Anderson said he expects participation rates to increase as enforcement increases.

“We haven't gotten the tonnage numbers for last week yet, but we expect to see the collections start to increase as the enforcement ramps up,” he said. The sanitation department has launched a public awareness campaign about the mandatory program, with ads running on coffee cups, NYC Ferry screens, city buses, and on social media.

“Composting is cool. Like, really cool,” the sanitation department wrote on Facebook.

Zapata said that more education for individual tenants would help increase composting rates.

“I think they need to demand that the tenants recycle the food,” he said, holding a bag of trash. “I shouldn’t have to be the one recycling it for them.”