Mayor Bloomberg estimates his new trash plan will save the city 3 million truck miles per year. New York City produces around 50,000 tons of trash and recyclables each day. Commercial trash (70% of all trash) is managed privately; residential waste is handled by the city’s Dept. of Sanitation (DOS).

Mayor Giuliani’s post-Fresh Kills plan, still in use today, relies mainly on trucks and a combination of city and private transfer stations to take trash to neighboring states. In 2001, the Tri-State Campaign estimated this system had added 264,000 outbound truck trips per year to city streets and highways. It translates to a near-12,000 pound increase in carbon dioxide emissions in New York and New Jersey every day (MTR #310). Mayor Bloomberg calls the current scheme "ultimately unsustainable."

The mayor’s new proposal would spend $340 million for infrastructure to allow trains and barges to export most of the trash. Four existing Marine Transfer Stations (MTS) in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn would be retrofitted by 2007 so waste would be tightly sealed in containers for travel. According to city documents, the plan would

• Close the MTS on Manhattan’s 135^th street and open the 91^st St. station on the East Side; trash would be shipped by barge and truck to a Newark incinerator and a TBD location. The West 59th Street MTS would process commercial waste and export it by barge or rail. A new recycling acceptance facility would be built on Gansevoort Street

• Continue use of Staten Island’s Fresh Kills transfer station, shipping trash out by rail to location TBD. Tracks are already under construction.

• Bring Queens trash to the Review Ave. facility, for barging or hauling to a Maspeth rail yard. It will also be barged from a converted North Shore MTS.

• In Brooklyn, MTS’ at Hamilton Ave. and the Southwest Brooklyn incinerator site (Bensonhurst) will be converted for barging. New South Brooklyn Marine Terminal will accept and process recycling, mainly by barge.1-2 transfer stations in Greenpoint will use export by rail or barge.

• The Bronx will maintain two truck-to-rail facilities (using Oak Point Rail Yard) at Harlem River yard and East 132 Street.

The four MTSs will take a portion of commercial waste, during the hours of 8 pm to 8 am.

A bidding process has narrowed potential carriers to five companies. When the city enters into the contract, the chosen company is to provide barges, rail cars, and transportation service to an out of state landfill. City officials say the process has just begun and a contract is about a year off. 

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