(NEW YORK) Mayor Michael Bloomberg has begun releasing details of a comprehensive plan to handle the city's commercial and residential waste now that the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island has shut down. The part of that plan dealing with commercial waste involves sending that waste through a marine transfer station on the west side of Manhattan.

Much of that waste now goes through the Bronx and Brooklyn. The commercial waste plan is designed to cut down on traffic and other problems borne by those neighborhoods.

According to city officials, an unspecified "substantial amount" of commercial waste will be sent through the marine transfer station, though the city has not yet specified a cost or schedule for implementing the plan. The station is currently used to send much of the city's paper to a mill on Staten Island for recycling.

The city also plans to impose more stringent operating conditions on commercial transfer stations in order to cut down on pollution, odor and truck traffic. Sanitation officials also plan to increase the inspection force monitoring transfer stations, and will pay for the added force by increasing the cost of private haulers' transportation permits.

One possible regulatory loophole, however, is the fact that the city cannot legally force commercial haulers to use the Manhattan location because of flow control concerns. However, the city plans to cap the amount of waste moving through certain Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods, which together host three-fourths of the transfer stations now operating in the city.

In addition, officials could consider establishing a franchise model, forcing the franchise winner of a given district to deliver the waste from that district to the Manhattan facility. The city could also use financial incentives to make the Manhattan facility competitive for private haulers.

Leaders in other boroughs noted that because 40 percent of the commercial garbage produced by the city comes from Manhattan, having a disposal facility in that borough is both practical and fair. The commercial waste stream is comprised of three parts--10,000 daily tons of perishable waste; 8,000 tons of construction waste, and 20,000 tons of fill excavated from construction sites on any given day.

In addition, two years after cutting back severely on recycling efforts, New York has signed a 20-year contract with Hugo Neu Corporation to handle the Big Apple's recyclables.

As part of the agreement, Hugo Neu, which handled the recycling of the World Trade Center debris, will develop a recycling plant on the Brooklyn waterfront to handle all the city's metal, glass, and plastic, and a portion of the mixed paper that the Department of Sanitation collects through a residential curbside recycling program.

"Three years ago, the City's recycling program was broken," Bloomberg said in announcing the new agreement. "Costs were spiraling out of control, and while New Yorkers diligently separated their recyclable material, no one wanted it.˙We suspended the program so we could create a better, more cost effective and environmentally friendly recycling program.˙ I am proud to announce that we are entering a new era for recycling in New York City."

Construction on the $25 million plant is expected to begin in early 2006 and conclude in late 2007, and will be financed by Hugo Neu. The contract will lower New York City's cost for processing metal, glass, and plastic recycling to $48 per ton. That figure is less than half of the $107 per ton that the city was facing before suspending the recycling program two years ago. The contract will cost the city approximately $16 million per year, a savings of nearly $20 million per year over what it would have paid under the prior recycling program.

Approximately 85 percent of the recyclables will be delivered to the plant by barge, and following processing, 75 percent will leave via barge, reducing truck traffic on city streets. The new plan will cut truck traffic by 55,000 vehicle miles per year, which was one of the major goals of the recycling program.

Source: New York Times

For more information, contact the New York City Department of Sanitation, (212) 219-8090, www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/dos.