There were a lot of reasons why Domingo Morales didn't want to try urban farming. He was afraid of germs. He didn't like vegetables. Everyone knows that the ground in New York City is shot through with lead.
Mr. Morales gave it a try because his bosses wanted him to. He loved it. At the time, he didn't know it, but he would go on to become the most famous compost guy in New York.
The doe-eyed, vibrant 30-year-old once known on the street as "Reckless" is on a mission to make composting cool by which he means accessible to everyone.
As many as 600,000 New Yorkers live in public housing and Mr. Morales created a program that brings composting to them.
For many years, compost has been an evil, stinky upper class thing that white people do.
The benefits of climate change could be huge. New Yorkers throw away a third of their food scraps and yard waste in landfills, which traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Composting food waste can reduce emissions.
Mr. Morales has become an ever-widening spotlight due to his devotion to that end. He was profiled on the How to Save a Planet podcasts and was named the New Yorker of the Week. His face was on a billboard in Brooklyn after he won a $200,000 prize for his composting ideas.
Onetime goal in life was to make it to 18 alive, and that is one of the remarkable feats for Mr. Morales.
It is good to be a kid from the hood and a person on the news.
Mr. Morales has a lot of energy and ideas. He pointed to a community garden as he walked through Harlem after visiting one of his compost sites. He thinks the manual labor involved in composting could be packaged as outdoor workouts and is working on a video series.
Mr. Morales said that he has all the burning energy that never goes away.
He was drilled early. Soundview Houses is a public housing complex in the Bronx. To save on subway fare, his mother had the entire family walk 15 miles to Red Hook, Brooklyn, where she worked as a home health aide. Mr.Morales sold candy on the subway and was fined for moving between subway cars.
The family moved to public housing in East Harlem, where Mr. Morales learned to fight. The kids were sent to foster care after his stepfather was arrested and charged with marijuana possession. Mr. Morales befriended people who were on the street. Some of them were stabbed or shot.
Two years later, Mr. Morales and his girlfriend had a second child. He said that he always mastered the job, but in most cases he was paid less than he deserved. He quit his job at a salad bar that paid $6.75 an hour.
On a dark day, Mr. Morales saw a notice for Green City Force, a nonprofit that trains young people from public housing for solar installation, horticulture and other green jobs.
I thought maybe this is a sign from the universe that I'm still needed, that there's something I could be useful for.
His world opened up when he took the flyer.
Mr. Morales was known for his larger than life personality, boundless curiosity, and relentlessness, according to the former executive director of Green City Force. As he built garden beds and planted seeds out in the sun, Mr. Morales learned about food injustice. His despondency subsided.
He worked three mornings a week at the compost site run by David Buckel, a climate activist and lawyer. The site was powered by hand and became Mr. Buckel's classroom.
When food scraps are properly composted, the end result is a wonderful resource: rich soil that strengthens plants and also serves as a carbon sink.
Composting is the only form of recycling that you can do from start to finish.
He learned how to build compost pyramids with fresh food scraps in the middle, insulated by older material, which deterred rodents, and that properly churned compost doesn't smell bad. He learned how black soldier flies can help compost meat and dairy products, which are often compost no-nos.
Mr. Morales was hired to work full time at the Red Hook site, and he put in long hours. He went back to East Harlem to live with his mother because of gang violence nearby.
Mr.Morales was hit with a number of losses early in the year. His cat, Max, died a week later. The news arrived one morning in April. Mr. Buckel set himself on fire in the park to protest climate change.
The fire is being fought with fire. As deadly wildfires become more common across America, the country is embracing planned fires to clear away vegetation. The changing climate is making it more difficult to carry out intentional burns.
Mr. Morales and a co-worker headed to a bar. He was laid off in mid 2020 after he fought for dwindling city funding.
Brighter skies were ahead.
The David Prize is named after the real estate developer David Walentas. Ms. Shepherd thought of Mr. Morales when she heard about it.
He saw the need for people to have a hands-on experience with compost, because the magic that happens when you yourself are the person taking food scraps and seeing them turn into something powerful that helps plants and food grow.
Mr. Morales built compost systems at five public housing sites that housed Green City Force urban vegetable farms. Nine young public housing tenants are employed by him.
He called his initiativeCompost Power, and gave it the slogan Making Composting Cool, and the sites have produced at least 30 tons of finished compost.
Mr. Morales says that his systems don't attract rats and that his teams collapse any rat tunnels they find. Mr. Morales shows how compost can be used to grow healthy vegetables. Compost Power runs children's workshops where Mr. Morales talks about collaborating with the F.B.I. Mr. Morales gave out magnifying glasses so they could see the life in the compost.
The executive director of Green City Force said that he is invested in the community.
Mr. Morales no longer lives full-time in New York. After Mr. Buckel's death, he only found solace in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, where he stayed with his cousin. He and his wife, who works in software, bought a place where they could grow a lot of vegetables. During the week, Mr. Morales stays with relatives and ponders about the carbon footprint of his one-and-a-half-hour commute; he planted trees on his property to help offset it. He is hoping to buy the new Ford F-150 electric truck because he heard it can double as a generator.
Mr. Morales wants to go to college one day, but he is working to expand the number of Compost Power sites and train his staff to eventually take over.
Everyone should like it, everyone should want it.
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