Impact Spotlight

Solar powered e-bikes powering waste collection from dozens of local businesses and over 100 neighborhood residents

Diverting hundreds of tons of organic waste from landfills towards high quality compost

Solar workshops for youth leaders and staff

About

In Bushwick, New York, residents face a concentration of waste infrastructure, high youth unemployment rates, lack of community composting options, and increasing inequality from rapid gentrification. Bushwick’s community is 87% people of color, and 25% of the population lives below the poverty line and grapples with additional environmental injustices, including the legacy of lead in soils and the lack of gardens and other green spaces.

Founded as a grassroots solution to environmental racism, youth unemployment, and lack of community composting in Brooklyn, NY, BK ROT is New York City's first community-supported, bike-powered, fossil fuel-free food waste hauling and composting service. BK ROT’s regenerative, closed-loop organic waste processing operation uses solar-charged e-bike transportation to haul organic waste from a network of local partners and businesses back to their facility. Employees come almost exclusively from the surrounding community, and a team of youth workforce trainees staff the operation, which diverts over 100 tons of organic waste and produces more than 50 tons of compost for their community per year.

“BK ROT is wheels-to-the-road, youth-centered, and fossil-fuel free throughout the cycle of collecting food scraps, composting, and distributing “black gold” to neighbors to grow a more resilient city. At the heart of all we do is resilience and regeneration — so building out and repairing our infrastructure for solar power across our sites is the natural next step to building our future.”

— Nora Tjossem, Executive Director, BK ROT

HF Partnership

In 2022, the Honnold Foundation partnered with BK Rot to solarize their composting facility, community kitchen, and e-bike fleet. Funding also supported an education program to train youth leaders on how solar arrays are sited, constructed, and maintained.

In 2025, the Honnold Foundation renewed its partnership with BK ROT to improve their on-site solar energy production in community green spaces in communities of color in North Brooklyn. Solar energy powers their innovative fossil-fuel-free organic waste microhauling and processing operations which divert waste from landfills, support local green infrastructure and food growing, and provide accessible, meaningful employment and training for local youth.