Environmental Issues in New York City - Garbage Disposal

Garbage Disposal

In September 2012, Travel+Leisure named New York City the #1 "America's Dirtiest City," from the results of a readership survey rating 35 "Favorite Cities" in the United States.

In 2001 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani closed the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The City did not have a subsequent plan for garbage disposal. An interim system was put in place in which most of the city's garbage was trucked out of the city to land fills in other states. This generated an unacceptable amount of truck traffic in low-income neighborhoods, leading to exacerbated air pollution. In 2006 Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation establishing a new solid waste management plan, which will use barges and trains to export 90% of the city’s 12,000 daily tons of residential trash. Under the previous scheme trucks and tractor-trailers were used for 84% of the trash. Passage of the new legislation was delayed by opponents in a Manhattan neighborhood who protested the use of a marine transfer station in the Hudson River Park. Environmentalists and social activists argued the plan promoted environmental justice because no one borough or neighborhood would bear a disproportionate burden under the proposal, and they therefore supported it.