New York crushed 5,000 discarded school toilets and lowered the porcelain into Jamaica Bay, creating foundations for new oyster reefs

Cities generate waste in forms that rarely seem reusable, and old toilets are a good example. But in New York City, thousands of discarded school toilets found an unexpected second life, not in a landfill, but at the bottom of Jamaica Bay, where their crushed remains now help anchor a growing oyster reef. The project stands as a small but telling case study in how a city agency turned a routine infrastructure upgrade into an environmental restoration effort.

This project took place in September 2016 under Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Residential and municipal recycling in New York City became mandatory between 1989 and 1993, among the earliest comprehensive municipal recycling laws in the country, and one that helped drive momentum for similar programs in other US cities. Instead of sending thousands of discarded toilets to a landfill, the city crushed them into rubble and lowered that rubble into Jamaica Bay to help rebuild a marine habitat that had disappeared from its waters for decades.

According to the New York City Mayor's Office announcement, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in partnership with the Billion Oyster Project, installed 50,000 oysters in Jamaica Bay, described as the largest single installation of breeding oysters in New York City at the time. Separately, the DEP had recycled nearly 5,000 toilets from city public schools as part of a water conservation upgrade, and the crushed porcelain from those toilets was used to build the reef's four receiving beds, mixed with oyster and clam shells.

The Billion Oyster Project, founded in 2014, is a New York City-based nonprofit with a long-term goal of restoring one billion live oysters to New York Harbor by 2035. Beyond the ecological work, the organization partners with public schools across the city, involving students in oyster restoration as a hands-on science education tool. Its model relies heavily on recycled shell material, much of it collected from New York City restaurants through a shell-recycling program, which is then cured and used to build reef structures. The Jamaica Bay porcelain reef fits into this broader pattern of the organization pairing waste diversion with habitat restoration across the harbor.

It is an unusual pairing: toilets and oyster reefs. But the story shows how a city agency can rethink waste in practical environmental work.

Why New York had thousands of old toilets in the first place
That porcelain had a specific origin: older toilets in the city's public schools used significantly more water per flush than modern fixtures, so the DEP worked with the schools to swap in thousands of water-saving models as part of a broader conservation effort.

Once the old toilets were removed, the DEP needed to decide what to do with the ceramic waste. Rather than discarding it, the department power-washed the porcelain and crushed it into pieces, removing any metal or plastic parts first so the material could be safely lowered into the bay.

Lowering crushed porcelain into Jamaica Bay to build reef foundations
The crushed porcelain became part of the base material for oyster reef beds in Jamaica Bay, an estuary bordering Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau County. According to the Mayor's Office press release, the installation combined one large donor bed with four smaller receiving beds made from a mix of clam shells, oyster shells, and the recycled toilet porcelain, and the announcement described the overall project as the largest single installation of breeding oysters in New York City at the time.

This mattered because Jamaica Bay's oyster population had disappeared over time. The same Mayor's Office press release states that the New York and New Jersey Harbor was once blanketed by oysters, but due to overharvesting, dredging, and pollution, they became functionally extinct in the area decades ago. Rebuilding that population required a hard surface for oyster larvae to settle on and grow.

Why oysters matter beyond the dinner plate
For many people, oysters are primarily a food. But according to NOAA Fisheries, oysters filter and clean surrounding water and provide habitat for other marine species, and in some locations oyster reefs can act as barriers that reduce wave energy and help protect shorelines from erosion and flooding. The same NOAA page notes that oyster reefs provide important habitat for many species and support food sources for commercially valuable fish.

That combination matches the goal New York officials cited for Jamaica Bay. Coverage of the announcement at the time indicated that the project would be monitored for water quality improvements and to protect surrounding wetlands from wave energy.

A small fix with measurable goals
New York never claimed that this single project would restore Jamaica Bay to the oyster-rich waters it once was, and the official record backs that restraint. It also does not claim the oysters alone would solve the bay's water quality challenges. The record shows a city agency repurposing discarded toilets for a monitored restoration project.