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Response from To the Editor: It’s true that the recycling/garbage industry diesel vehicles are responsible for large quantities of air pollution. However, there is a viable solution. In Berkeley California, recycling and garbage vehicles are fueled instead by vegetable oil. This “biodiesel” allows efficient recycling without pollution: Studies demonstrate reduced particulate emissions by as much as 55%. Sulfur compounds and carbon monoxide levels were slashed in half. Aromatic hydrocarbons were eliminated. Secondly, the construction of waste incinerators in “depressed” or “industrial” locales has historically been associated with environmental racism. Poor people of color are most likely to work and live near these areas, making them the primary victims of incinerator pollution which includes dioxins, (a leading cause of cancer), lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury and chromium. Cohen claims that incineration reduces waste by 90%. The toxic ash produced by incineration (and the problem of what to do with it) is not mentioned. Cohen is right to advise New York City to re-institute their recycling program precisely because waste incineration produces only a quarter of the amount of energy saved by recycling. It is little wonder that the construction of 248 new municipal incinerators has been blocked United States alone. Other countries in need of energy more than the US, like the Philippines, have outright banned the burn. Perhaps we have something to learn from them. Tim Krupnik and Dave Williamson The
Ecology Center is one of the first environmental organizations in the US,
started in 1969. They also started in one of the first Curbside
Recycling programs in the US in 1973, and still operate it under
contract of the City of Berkeley. These people know what they're
talking about because they've made exhaustive studies of both recycling
and incineration. Please see the study they did on Plastics Recycling, which is presently being updated. Many new features will be added, such as the health effects of plastics, which are not at all good. |
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's recent proposal to develop garbage-transfer stations to compact refuse and send it away by barge is a step in the right direction. The stations, to be placed in waterfront locations throughout the city, would replace a system that uses thousands of polluting, diesel-fueled trucks daily to haul garbage through the city's streets to landfill sites in other states.
Now the city should find, indeed create, better destinations for the 11,000 tons of household refuse that New Yorkers produce every day. In doing so, New York could help itself and several cities and towns along the Hudson River that need to revive their economies.
Currently, the city contracts with private vendors to ship its waste and dispose of it in out-of-state landfills. But the private waste-management business is composed of a small number of large companies and is thus not very competitive. This has contributed to astronomical garbage disposal costs. The Sanitation Department's operating costs reached $1 billion last year.
A better approach would be for the city to build its own sites in some of the depressed localities that dot the Hudson's shores. Under such a plan, sponsored together with the state, New York City could build high-temperature incinerators that generate electricity, known as waste-to-energy plants, in industrial sections of these towns. In exchange, the city could offer free or reduced-cost garbage disposal for participating towns and perhaps low-priced electricity (generated by the incinerators) to businesses that put offices or factories in these localities.
If needed, additional incentives, like help with building new public schools or recreational areas, could be offered under such a state-sponsored program.
This approach has already been used for a clean-water project within New York City. About 15 years ago, the city and state worked with the West Harlem community to build a sewage treatment plant in that neighborhood. As an incentive, the state (with city and federal help) built the 28-acre Riverbank State Park on top of the plant, complete with a soccer field, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and an ice skating rink.
Indeed, when it comes to garbage, neighborhoods in New York City might also want the kind of economic or social benefits the Bloomberg administration and the state could offer to upstate localities participating in a waste-to-energy program.
All methods of garbage disposal produce some environmental pollution. But waste-to-energy incinerators, especially when they are built to be as environmentally protective as possible, produce less pollution than diesel-fueled trucks and landfills do.
Waste-to-energy plants also reduce by 90 percent the volume of refuse that must be placed in landfills, all of which eventually release pollution into the surrounding environment.
New York City needs to own its entire garbage disposal system to ensure that costs are predictable and as low as possible. Parts of the operation could still be contracted out to private firms via competitive bidding. But the city must be in charge from the beginning of the process to the end. Otherwise costs will continue to grow.
To be sure, upstate incineration plants are not the whole solution to New York City's garbage crisis. The city must also reduce waste and do a better job of recycling. It can start by raising the deposit on bottles from a nickel to 50 cents or a dollar so that fewer bottles are simply discarded for convenience. And deposits should be required on all bottles and containers, not just those holding carbonated beverages.
The city should also reinstate its recently halted recycling of glass and plastic. It took many years to get New York City households into the recycling habit. We have tossed out years of effort for short-run budget savings, when in the long run waste reduction through recycling can save dollars. If there is no market for recycled glass and plastic, why not build our own recycling plants and create our own market?
The Bloomberg administration's waste-transfer proposal is a creative step toward solving New York City's garbage crisis. Now let's finish the job just as creatively.
Steven Cohen directs the graduate program in earth systems, science policy and management at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Earth Institute, both at Columbia University.
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