Filed Under: Environmental Issues | New York City | Solid Waste | Solid Waste

SOLID WASTE In New York City, the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) has the responsibility to collect and dispose of solid waste and recyclable materials generated by residences, some non-profit institutions, tax-exempt properties and New York City agencies. Private waste carriers contract their services to businesses in the City to collect commercial waste. The DSNY and the private carters haul waste to solid waste management facilities where the waste is processed and sent to disposal or recycling facilities out of New York City. City garbage trucks currently transport 12,000 tons of residential and institutional trash per day to transfer stations in New York City and New Jersey from where it is sent to landfills and incinerators on Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Fresh KillsLand Fill Fresh Kills Closure The Fresh Kills landfill, located in Staten Island along Arthur Kill North, had received the City's residential waste for the past 50 years and had been both a convenience and an environmental nuisance to City residents. The City transported its residential trash (for all the boroughs except Staten Island) daily to marine transfer stations, which then barged the garbage to Fresh Kills. With the closure of the Fresh Kills landfill in March 2001, New York City began exporting 100% of its trash at a cost of roughly $1 billion per year or about 22% of the city’s residential property tax revenue. The trash is currently being hauled by trucks through the boroughs, across bridges and tunnels, to out-of-state locations. The export of residential trash adds to the 13,000 tons of the City's commercial trash already being hauled daily out of state by private carters, essentially doubling the amount of trash being transported by truck out of the City. The impact of overland truck hauling is palpable: with 246,000 diesel garbage trucks leaving and re-entering the city each year, traffic across the main bridges and tunnels into New Jersey has increased by 2% since export began in 1997. Air pollution along Canal Street near the Holland tunnel has increased by 17%. Residents of neighborhoods burdened with transfer stations complain of increased noise and odor and charge that this is an instance of environmental racism. The City's plan for closing Fresh Kills and implementing a new residential waste export plan is a $300 million a year network of stations, barges, trucks and trains; it previously cost $100 million per annum to operate Fresh Kills.