Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Tuesday, November 26th. Here's the midday news. I'm Janae Pierre. Some local policy advocates are sounding the alarm over potential cuts to a federal program that helps nearly 2 million New Yorkers afford groceries. Federal lawmakers are currently negotiating over possible changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, authorized through the Farm Bill. One proposal would limit SNAP's growth over time, meaning the subsidies might not go as far. Bronx resident Emily Sanaceven says she already has to stretch the $300 in federal subsidies she get gets each month for herself, her husband and her six-month-old son.

Emily Sanaceven: It's hard to get things that aren't processed and boxed and actually make healthy food throughout the month.

Janae Pierre: Congress could opt to extend the current Farm Bill and put off making any updates until next year. A Vietnam veteran who spent almost eight years in prison for a rape he didn't commit is suing Westchester County and the town of Greenburgh. Here's WNYC's Samantha Max.

Samantha Max: Leonard Mack was convicted of raping a teen in 1975 while she walked home from school in Greenburgh. It took him almost five decades to clear his name.

Leonard Mack: I'm going to fight this until I prove my innocence. I don't care how long it takes. As long as I have breath in my body, I'm going to fight this because I know I didn't do it.

Samantha Max: Mack was exonerated last year after DNA testing confirmed his innocence and identified the true perpetrator. He says he's suing because he doesn't want anyone else to be wrongfully convicted like he was.

Janae Pierre: Westchester County and Greenburgh officials did not respond to a request for comment. Stay close. There's more after the break.

Tiffany Hansen: Here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hansen. New York City sanitation officials say nearly every resident in the city can now have their compost picked up from for free every week. Landlords are required to set up a bin in each building for food scraps, but how many building residents are actually composting? Joining us is WNYC's Parks and Sanitation reporter, Liam Quigley, who has taken a look at the data. Let's just start with a quick primer before we dig into the data here on the city's composting program.

Liam Quigley: Everybody's supposed to be composting right now. That's been true since October. That means setting out organics separately from regular trash, any food scraps, all compostable waste that is getting picked up the same day that recycling goes out. The sanitation department has been doing a lot of these initiatives since Mayor Adams took office. That includes a temporary rollout in Queens. Then that was brought back along with Brooklyn, and as of last month, that rolled out to the whole city. This is the first citywide curbside compost collection program.

As they've been expanding this they've also cut funding for community composting programs like you might see at the farmers market. They said since we have this citywide rollout, those aren't really necessary. What we learned looking at the data, is that right now only a pretty small fraction of New Yorkers are actually composting at the curb.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, you say everyone is supposed to have access to composting. If it is only a fraction, do we know exactly how many New Yorkers are composting?

Liam Quigley: We're lucky to have really great data from the sanitation department. They study the trash pretty intensely. From looking at what they collected last month, that was over 3,000 tons of composting. That sounds like a lot, but based on their own figures, that number should be something like over 70,000 tons. I talked to Samantha MacBride. She's an expert on this kind of stuff. She worked at the sanitation department. She studied composting super closely in the city and she was emphasizing to me that people need time to figure this stuff out.

Samantha MacBride: I would say, at the very least, the buildings that are going to get enforced upon need to have far more support and attention from sanitation before that hammer of government is brought down.

Liam Quigley: She's telling me, explaining how education to reach people, especially in bigger buildings, it's going to take a lot of work, like one in two family homes. If the landlord lives there, it's their own home, they get the bin, they set out for compost. Larger buildings, they have to figure out where to put these bins. This could be a big challenge for a lot of buildings.

Tiffany Hansen: What's being done to get the numbers up then? Are people getting fines? Is it a carrot stick kind of situation?

Liam Quigley: Right now carrot in the form of outreach, a lot of education. Sanitation department knows that's going to be a big part of this. They have people who-- they look through your trash every day anyway to see if people are recycling. That's how fines get issued for failure to recycle. For composting right now, there's warnings, there's education, but in April, the fines come in, and they start at $50 and they go up from there. Looking at this data, a lot of buildings are going to get hit with fines.

Tiffany Hansen: Well, what have you been hearing from superintendents on this?

Liam Quigley: One super is like, "Getting people to recycle is like pulling teeth." He spends a lot of time in the basement going through people's trash to getting compliance with the recycling rules that have existed since 1989, a long time. He's like, "Getting people to compost in this building, you're more likely to fly to the moon." It's a lot of work. A lot of supers are frustrated and they get caught in between the policy and the reality of what we want for the city's trash.

Tiffany Hansen: Has the Department of Sanitation acknowledged that challenge, and what are they saying specifically?

Liam Quigley: They totally acknowledge that it's going to be a long process. Sanitation officials told me it took 20 years to get up to a 50% recycling rate, which is roughly where we're at now. On the West Coast, they have a lot of these composting programs, but this is new for a lot of New Yorkers, and they're based-- The sanitation department is saying they want to educate people about composting first before April when the fines can start hitting the doors of buildings in New York City. My building doesn't have a bin. The official line on that is I'm supposed to call 311 to flag that for the department.

Tiffany Hansen: Sounds like it's a challenge for a lot of New Yorkers. Liam, thanks for your time.

Liam Quigley: Thank you.

Tiffany Hansen: Liam Quigley covers sanitation for WNYC. You can read his reporting right now at our news site, Gothamist.

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Janae Pierre: As family and friends get ready to gather for the Holidays, WNYC's community partnerships desk is inviting locals to share the stories behind their favorite foods.

Angelica Vargas: My name is Angelica Vargas. Everybody calls me Angie. I'm from Monterrey, Mexico. It's the northern part of Mexico, and I currently live in New Jersey. I have two kids. I'm very proud of my two babies. Angelina, she's six years old, and my son, Alexander, he's nine. They're also great cooks, just like mom and grandma and great-great-great-great-great-great-great parents. [laughs] I love food and I feel like food brings the family together. One of my favorite things is flour tortillas. It's very difficult to make tortillas in a way because it sounds like, "Oh, it's flour tortillas. It's so simple." No, you have to really practice a lot to make them perfect.

My mom learned to make them with my great-grandmother and with my grandmother and then she teach me. My mom passed away last year and we miss her tortillas so much. My kids, they're like, "Mom, we love your tortillas, but there's nothing like grandma's." [laughs] My most beautiful memories of my mom cooking it was in my grandparents' ranch in Monterrey. It's between the mountains and then the river passing by next to the house. There was the outdoor kitchen. It's like a grill. I see a picture in my head, in my eyes, in my brain of my mom rolling tortillas in the table and then put them in the comal in the fire. Hearing the fire, seeing the beautiful fire, putting the tortillas there and then they start bubbling and then you flip them.

You don't have to flip them that much, but then they bubble like big. Well, they say that when your tortillas bubbles, you can get married. Like you're ready to be married because now you know how to make tortillas. That's a Mexican saying. At the end of the day, it's enjoying food and family time together, talking and laughing and just those smiles make it worth it.

Janae Pierre: Angelica Vargas lives in Garfield, New Jersey. She's a cooking instructor with the League of Kitchens.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.

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