Currently, New York City’s disposes of the waste is by transporting it to out-of-state landfills. However, in recent years, transporting the waste has made a significant impact on the city. For example, relying on truck transport affects the air quality in the communities that surround the transfer stations. Also, the transportation of the solid waste is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. With the health risks that the transporting of solid waste through trucks have on the people in the city, the Comprehensive Solid Waste Plan has planned a number of waste infrastructure construction project that will help bring an end to long-haul trucking and will also be less costly. Most of the SWMP is putting marine transfer stations along Manhattan piers and Brooklyn rather than using truck transportation.
Do you think the city will approve such a change although they are already accustomed to how the waste is currently being transported?
It’s interesting that the city is planning to reduce truck-based transportation of wastes in the city. However, on the article, it also projected that barge will be used much more in the future to transport waste. I’m wondering what they’re intended this mode of transportation to do for the wastes. Are they using barge as an alternative to trucks and transporting wastes to stations near the pier? Or are they using barge to move waste to outside of the states? They weren’t specific on that so I wasn’t clear.
The projected increase use of barge as a mode of transportation raises another question on the article. From all the methods that they named, WTE incineration, Anaerobic Digestion, and Thermal Processing, non of them seems to be planned to be located near a water/river source for barges to transport the wastes to. How is this system or future projection use of barges going to work then?
I think it’s a great idea for NYC to consider other methods of waste removal in order to save transportation money and help the environment by reducing pollution, but they should take into consideration the environmental effects of their alternative methods. If they want to ship waste out of New York state, then they need to take into account the amount of carbon emissions the alternative shipping method uses up as well and if storing it out of state is just bringing the same problems we’re dealing with into another place. I believe the alternative methods that Comprehensive Solid Waste Plan named can greatly benefit NYC in terms of getting rid of our waste more effectively. Not only does waste removal cause further greenhouse gas emissions, but the storage of it in selected places ruins those places’ ecosystems and causes discomfort to residents living around there. Even the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant takes great care to reduce the fumes and smells that come out from their facility in order to prevent causing discomfort to their neighbors. I believe waste should be removed by one of the methods such as WTE incineration or Thermal Processing to get the most benefit from this conversion in environmental terms.