Mayor Eric Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch joined “Mornings On 1” Monday to discuss the expansion of the city’s curbside composting program to all five boroughs.

Under the new rules, all New Yorkers will be required to separate their trash, and buildings with more than four units must provide a designated storage area for compost collection bins. Compost will be collected on regular recycling days throughout the year.

“If you cook it or you grow it, you can throw it,” Tisch said, urging residents to use their composting bins for “anything from their kitchen and anything from their yard.”

Tisch said enforcement will not begin until April 2025, to “give all New Yorkers an opportunity to get the muscle memory, to get used to separating out their food waste and their yard waste.”

Fines for non-compliance will begin in April, with penalties starting at $25 for single-family homes and escalating to $100. For larger buildings, initial fines will be $100, increasing to $300 for subsequent offenses.

Tisch added that curbside composting will also serve as an effective strategy for combating the city’s rat population.

“Curbside composting is the best rat mitigation strategy there is,” she said. “We know that one-third of the material in those black bags is food waste, and human food, unfortunately, is also rat food. So if we get that food out of the black bags and we put it into the composting bins, we bring the fight to the rats.”

Adams praised Tisch for her efforts, stressing that the city will eventually collect “3 billion tons of composting.”

“When you think about what Commissioner Tisch has been able to accomplish, so many people have tried, [different] administrations, and we've been able to get it done in the five boroughs,” he said.