Colón conquers with compost

Mention the words “compost” and “Bronx” to environmentalists in New York City, and you are likely to hear one name: Jodie Colón.

“It’s black gold — that’s what we call compost,” said Ms. Colón, 55, as she sifted through a bin filled with leaves, food scraps, tiny worms and the finished product, compost, at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) on Monday.

The Spuyten Duyvil resident is now the project manager of the NYC Compost Project, an outreach program based at NYBG that oversees 91 different composting sites throughout the Bronx alone. Ten of them are in the Riverdale and Kingsbridge area.

In spite of her reputation, Ms. Colón, a Long Island native who began her career as a retail consultant, would call herself an “accidental” environmental activist.

“I didn’t intend to be an environmentalist, but my spiritual values are about stewardship,” she said. “Working in Queens, in retail, you get so disconnected from everything.”

After moving to Spuyten Duyvil with her husband, who hails from the Bronx, in 1994, Ms. Colón began volunteering with different activist groups in the area. One of those was a group dedicated to cleaning up graffiti and trash around Riverdale’s Metro-North station.

Through the Metro-North cleanup, she heard of plans to fix a problem with sewage entering the Hudson River by creating a pen to hold the waste — rather than fix the drainage problem itself.

“I didn’t think that was such a great idea,” she said.

Then a scientist suggested using compost to prevent runoff water from draining sewage into the river.

It was the first time Ms. Colón had heard of the method of adding nutrients to depleted soil.

Since then, it has become ingrained in her consciousness.

Hobby to career

Along with the cleanups and gardening “green ups” she participated in as a volunteer, she started learning about composting at NYBG. Ms. Colón hosted a compost give-away at the Metro-North station in 1996. In 1998, NYBG invited her into its master composter training program. She soon landed a paid job at the Botanical Garden.