| Releases & Statements
Public
Advocate Announces Trash Recommendations
Ending Community Discrimination Tops List of Proposals for Mayor’s
new Solid Waste Management Plan
After a tour of waste
transfer stations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Public Advocate Betsy
Gotbaum today unveiled recommendations for improving the way New
York City gets rid of its trash. The recommendations aim to minimize
the impact of commercial waste and to equalize the distribution
of garbage transfer facilities. Currently only two York City neighborhoods
– Greenpoint/Williamsburg and South Bronx -- handle 80 percent,
or 17,600 tons per day, of the city’s trash.
“The city’s current waste
management plan fails to address the injustice associated with
Fresh Kills. Instead it simply transferred it to a handful of
low-income communities of color on New York’s water front,”
said Gotbaum. “The City’s new plan must address the
equitable distribution of waste transfer.”
Gotbaum’s proposals also focus
on cost effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. The four
proposals are:
• Use barge and rail export methods. Gotbaum supports the
Department of Sanitation’s proposed solid waste management
plan, but recommends retrofitting, wherever feasible, marine transfer
stations with containerization technology that would “package”
raw waste for transport out of the city on clean, efficient barges.
• Stringently regulate private waste transfer stations.
The Public Advocate recommends adopting reforms proposed by affected
communities, including a moratorium on all new waste transfer
stations; strict operations regulation; requirements for technological
upgrades; reduced capacity; and closing of the worst offenders.
• Reinstate recycling and waste prevention measures. Cutting
recycling achieved limited financial gain at the expense of waste
prevention, which is an integral part of any long-term solid waste
management plan. The city should work with recycling experts to
identify and develop markets for recycled plastics and glass and
lobby for the passage of the Bottle Bill, which could cover the
current costs associated with recycling.
• Integrate commercial waste into the proposed barge and
rail system. The city’s new plan should concurrently focus
on integrating a plan for commercial waste disposal that would
alleviate the load currently handles by a handful of neighborhoods.
By conservative estimates, the city could get rid of nearly half
of its 10,000 tons per day of organic commercial waste by water
transport, rather than by trucks that pollute poor neighborhoods.
The Public Advocate also believes
that the Linden facility, with its limitations and apparent problems,
or a Linden-like facility, represents the best option for maximizing
social equity by reducing the impact of garbage transfer stations
and minimizing environmental impacts.
“The bottom line is that we
need a plan that won’t dump most of our trash in a few neighborhoods.
The trucking and dumping system we currently rely on causes extreme
pollution in several neighborhoods. In those areas asthma rates
in children are high and our elderly are threatened with health
problems caused by particulate matter we can’t identify
and know little about. We need to stop what we are doing, be fair
and smart about the way we get rid of our trash,” concluded
Gotbaum.
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