NYC’s iconic compost bin gets a cool kids makeover

New York City has its obvious icons: The Statue of Liberty; Milton’ Glaser’s I “heart” New York logo; yellow cabs. Lesser known, but no less iconic, is the city’s compost bins. You know a NYC compost bin when you see one. Dirt brown, with a bright orange clasp, they roll out on recycling day, filled with gloriously stinky food scraps. NYC distributed the large brown bins for free in 2024, but not every household got one before the sanitation department OK’d using any bin (55 gallons or less) for composting. Now the bins have been shrunk down to the scale of your kitchen, and we have to admi...