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Meet the NYC environmentalists going off the grid and eating discarded food
By
Rosemary Misdary
Published May 2, 2025
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Rosemary Misdary
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Rosemary Misdary
Published May 2, 2025
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Joshua Spodek’s studio apartment in the West Village is an off-grid oasis.
While other apartments in his 15-story co-op rely on electricity produced by fossil fuel-burning power plants, Spodek is disconnected from Con Edison and National Grid. The main circuit breaker in his apartment is turned off.
Instead, he powers his few electric devices – phone, laptop, pressure cooker and a single light turned on only to read at night – with solar panels the size of an unfurled yoga mat that he charges weekly in Washington Square Park. He buys nothing in a package. The total garbage he’s accumulated over the last three years fits in a reusable shopping tote. He doesn’t use cars and hasn’t flown in nearly a decade. He estimates he’s reduced his overall carbon footprint by 95% since he unplugged from the grid.
“ There's a certain amount of sunlight that I get and that gives me a certain amount of power, and then I choose what I do based on what I get, and that's how humans lived for a long, long time,” Spodek said.
As New York’s ambitious climate goals move even further out of reach due to President Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda, Spodek’s lifestyle stands as an extreme example of how some individuals are trying to help improve the environment. Gothamist asked Spodek and other environmentalists to share how they’re trying to live a more sustainable city life – including hunting for food waste.
Sandra Goldmark, associate dean for Engagement and Impact at the Columbia Climate School, said individuals have important roles to play in the fight against climate change. Leaving the effort to governments won’t suffice.
“There's a little bit of a false choice between individual action and systemic action. It is absolutely not an either or,” Goldmark said. “It has to be both because we're talking about large scale culture shifts and large scale system changes, and those have to happen at multiple scales simultaneously.”
Spodek leads an online sustainability workshop where he encourages students to come up with their own lifestyle changes to reduce their carbon footprints.
One of Spodek’s students, Ivette Vargas, began by becoming vegan. Then she cut down on purchases that come in packaging, like cleaning and beauty products. She’s now in the process of starting a package-free food co-op in the Bronx.
Ivette Vargas (left) has eliminated packaged food from her purchases at the grocery store.
Rosemary Misdary
”Even on my journey, any change is difficult,” Vargas said. “There's a transition that goes along with it and there's a learning curve until you get it right, and it becomes routine to the point where you don’t even think about it.”
New York City throws away about 4 million tons of food annually, which is about 20% of the waste stream. Those organics produce methane and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas pollution.
Goldmark said participating in the city’s mandatory composting program is one of the most effective ways to reduce one's carbon footprint. A 2023 study by the Department of Sanitation found that 36% of residential garbage is suitable for composting.
Some New Yorkers take a more enterprising approach to reducing food waste – by rooting through the trash.
The freegans' spread of food after a night scouring trash bags on the Upper East Side.
Rosemary Misdary
On a recent Friday night on the Upper East Side, around 40 New Yorkers who call themselves “freegans” went on a walk that was a combination of a scavenger hunt, a food waste workshop and shopping crawl.
Outside of a bagel store, the group of college students and retirees opened three garbage bags that were full of bagels. At a small corner bakery, they divided a bounty of donuts, muffins and loaves of bread that were left in trash bags. At supermarkets they found a grocery aisle's worth of discarded food. There were individually wrapped prepared foods like sandwiches, salads and pastas, as well as fresh produce, including a sack of more than 50 avocados still good enough to make guacamole.
The freegans found a trash bag full of good avocados outside an Upper East Side grocery store.
Rosemary Misdary
The freegans asked Gothamist not to identify the stores out of concern the publicity would eliminate their source of free food.
”Rescuing the food is not the crazy thing. The crazy thing is that there's perfectly usable food in the trash,” said Nancy Benignus, a retired Washington Heights resident who says she has been living exclusively off discarded food for more than a decade. “It should not be in the trash when people are food insecure.”
But eating food found in the trash doesn’t appeal to everyone. Spodek had a tip for people looking to score free eats that otherwise would end up in the garbage: He suggested going to farmer’s markets at closing time and asking vendors for any leftover produce.
”You can get a lot of free vegetables, and they thank me because they don't want to carry it back,” Spodek said. “I can eat it, and I don't care that it's ugly, it still tastes good.”
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Health and Science
Rosemary Misdary
Rosemary is health & science reporter. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 646-544-9524.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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