New York City Approves Marine-Based Trash Transport To Cut Truck Congestion
The first comprehensive solid waste management plan (SWMP) since the closure of the Fresh Kills landfill, the dump site for all of New York City’s trash for more than 50 years, has been approved by the New York city council.
The vote — in favor of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 20-year draft solid waste management plan — will allow the city to move forward with rebuilding waterfront transfer stations, setting the stage for a new solid waste system that will cut truck congestion by relying less on trucks and more on barges and trains.
Since the Fresh Kills landfill closure five years ago, the city has relied on truck-based transfer stations, concentrated in a handful of districts in the South Bronx, Northern Brooklyn and Jamaica, Queens. The draft plan proposed by Mayor Bloomberg in October 2004 spreads the burden of solid waste transfer through all boroughs.
“Opening up the Manhattan waterfront to marine transfer stations is the most powerful way to cut trash truck traffic across the city,” said Ramon Cruz, policy analyst for Environmental Defense’s Living Cities Program. “It is also the essential first step toward closing dirty, truck-to-truck transfer stations that unfairly burden our neighborhoods. The city gets cleaner air and less congestion by moving trash and recyclables by barge and rail rather than by truck. Today, trash trucks in Manhattan alone travel more than 7 million miles a year — enough to circle the globe more than 300 times. A waterfront system can cut that in half. The Mayor’s plan is a first step in that direction. As a next step, it will be essential to design new transfer stations to the highest environmental standards, to address truck idling and make them good neighbors on the waterfront.”
Environmental Defense is a national nonprofit organization, with more than 400,000 members. Since 1967, Environmental Defense has linked science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to create breakthrough solutions to the most serious environmental problems.
