NY's Garbage: Down and Out in the Dumps

In today's Crain's In$ider the newsletter is reporting what we have been screaming about for the past four years-the landfill space is drying up and it's going to create a disposal crisis for a city that has not taken waste reduction seriously. We now are told by Crain's that Virginia, Pennsylvania and north Carolina are becoming more resistant to accepting New York City's trash.

As one analyst tells Crain's: "'If we lose access to Pennsylvania and Virginia, New York City will be in a crisis,' ...noting a paucity of in-state landfill capacity." Well, duh! That's what we have been saying all along about the charade that is known as a SWMP. The Council's six little gnomes operating in an office of recycling will begin to look like a cruel joke when we start to see tipping fees double and export costs follow suit.

As Crain's points out the Bloomberg folks are compounding the problem by looking to negotiate 20 year contracts with two large firms (Waste Management of course is one), insuring that the city will pay through the nose for its lack of leverage.

Meanwhile the one reliable and environmentally sound methodology for waste reduction and recycling-food waste disposers-is being stymied by a hidebound bureaucracy who's not looking out for all New Yorkers. We should realize by now that the costs to insure that the waste water treatment facilities can handle processed food waste (greatly exaggerated as they are by the DEP) are well worth the expense in the face of the export black hole. Wake up everyone (especially you Mike McMahon).