Solid Waste

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer filed an excellent story on San Francisco’s successful waste management strategy.

The story discussed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s zeal for keeping garbage out of landfills. Currently, his city keeps 70 percent of its disposable garbage out of landfills.

You might think that would be enough, but it’s not. He is about to propose legislation to mandate recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps. If you don’t recycle, the city won’t pick up the rest of your garbage.

How much of New York City’s waste is kept out of landfills? About 30 percent. Of course, that puts us ahead of Boston at 16 percent and Houston at less than 3 percent.  read more »

New York City’s 8 million residents and millions of businesses, construction projects and visitors generate as much as 36,200 tons of garbage every day.

The city’s Department of Sanitation handles nearly 13,000 tons per day of waste generated by residents, public agencies and non-profit corporations; private carting companies handle the remainder.

During the twentieth century, the City relied on a number of landfills for garbage disposal. Then, in December 2001, the city’s last garbage dump, Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island, closed. In response, we adopted a 20-year plan for exporting waste.

The city’s annual bill for collecting and disposing residential trash jumped from about $658 million in 2000 and to about one and a quarter billion dollars in 2008. The cost of disposal has grown from $300 million in 2005 to about $400 million today. While some of that is inflation, most of it is due to the higher cost of transporting and landfilling garbage out of state. The City’s long-term plan is to reduce costs by recycling more, reducing waste and building a waterfront waste transfer system less dependent on trucks and able to use containers to ship garbage by barge and train further away to cheaper dumpsites.

It is hard to imagine a more environmentally damaging waste-management system than the one we have in New York.  read more »