Transform Don’t Trash NYC

- by Gavin Kear­ney (Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Direc­tor, New York Lawyers for the Pub­lic Inter­est) & Eddie Bautista (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, New York City Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Alliance)

New York City’s homes and busi­ness­es gen­er­ate any­where from 6 to 8 mil­lion tons of mixed sol­id waste every year – more than any oth­er city in the coun­try. And the man­ner in which it man­ages that waste is rife with injus­tice – a few NYC com­mu­ni­ties of col­or play host to numer­ous truck-inten­sive trans­fer facil­i­ties, while oth­er com­mu­ni­ties of col­or as near as Newark and as far as Vir­ginia and Ohio then receive NYC’s waste for land­fill­ing and incin­er­a­tion. For over a decade we have been work­ing with envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice advo­cates and oth­er allies in NYC to address these issues. We have achieved some impor­tant incre­men­tal vic­to­ries over pitched oppo­si­tion. But much remains to be done. 

Ulti­mate­ly, if it is to do right by Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice (EJ) com­mu­ni­ties, NYC needs to great­ly dimin­ish the amount of mate­r­i­al it exports for dis­pos­al and build local recy­cling infra­struc­ture while min­i­miz­ing com­mu­ni­ty impacts, cre­at­ing a safer work­place for waste work­ers, and reduc­ing envi­ron­men­tal harms.  To build the will for this with­in the City we are work­ing to expand the local dis­cus­sion around sol­id waste to encom­pass work­er well-being, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, cli­mate change, fair treat­ment for small busi­ness­es, and, of course, envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. This is the focus of our cur­rent, ongo­ing cam­paign for sol­id waste reform – Trans­form Don’t Trash NYC.

Back­ground

Recy­cling rates in NYC are woe­ful — about 15% for res­i­dences and at most 25% for busi­ness­es, mean­ing that every year mil­lions of tons of NYC waste is unnec­es­sar­i­ly buried or burned. With­in NYC, col­lec­tion trucks haul this waste to trans­fer sta­tions in a few com­mu­ni­ties of col­or and long-haul trucks haul it back out. About three-fourths of all waste han­dled in New York City goes to just three com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in the South Bronx, North Brook­lyn and South­east Queens. 

Res­i­dents in these low-income com­mu­ni­ties of col­or are inun­dat­ed with thou­sands of waste-relat­ed diesel truck trips every day, as well as oth­er envi­ron­men­tal bur­dens such as pow­er plants, Super­fund sites, and truck-inten­sive dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters. The human costs of this over­bur­den­ing can be seen in health out­comes such as asth­ma hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, and in day-to-day hard­ships like inces­sant noise pol­lu­tion and soot that forces res­i­dents to keep win­dows closed even on the hottest days.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, much of NYC’s waste was buried or burned with­in city lim­its (or if you go back a bit fur­ther, dumped into the sea). The cur­rent state of affairs can large­ly be traced to May­or Giuliani’s polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed deci­sion to close the Fresh Kills land­fill on Stat­en Island, one of NYC’s last Repub­li­can strong­holds and a source of key sup­port for his can­di­da­cy. The land­fill clo­sure was under­tak­en with no alter­na­tive plan in place. In response, pub­lic and pri­vate haulers turned to the pri­vate sec­tor and in a short peri­od of time the con­di­tions in NYC EJ com­mu­ni­ties described above arose. 

EJ Orga­niz­ing Around Waste and New York City’s 2006 Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Plan   

In this post-Fresh Kills con­text emerged NYC’s first and only City-wide coali­tion of EJ groups focused on garbage jus­tice – the Orga­ni­za­tion of Water­front Neigh­bor­hoods (OWN). OWN released a report in 2000 that artic­u­lat­ed an alter­na­tive waste man­age­ment plan for NYC that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase recy­cling while retro­fitting the City’s marine trans­fer sta­tions (MTSs) – the facil­i­ties that had barged waste to Fresh Kills pri­or to its clo­sure. Unlike pri­vate trans­fer sta­tions, the MTSs were fair­ly sit­ed through­out all of NYC’s five bor­oughs, would reduce reliance on long-haul trucks, and would be man­aged by the City, which pro­vid­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to min­i­mize emis­sions and ensure account­abil­i­ty to local neighbors.

A sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for local EJ advo­cates came in 2006. After two years of hear­ings, com­mu­ni­ty forums and debate, the New York City Coun­cil and the May­or passed a Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Plan for the City that embraced OWN’s call for retro­fitting City MTSs. In the process of imple­men­ta­tion, the Plan will ulti­mate­ly take hun­dreds of waste haul­ing trucks off the streets of EJ com­mu­ni­ties every day and elim­i­nate mil­lions of diesel truck miles in and around NYC every year by tip­ping waste at facil­i­ties clos­er to its point of gen­er­a­tion and by replac­ing long-haul trucks with barges and rail­cars. This was a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for EJ advo­cates who had fought for years to address the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry sit­ing of waste and oth­er facil­i­ties in NYC. It was the first time that the City had embraced the con­cept of “fair share” for the sit­ing of munic­i­pal infra­struc­ture and the Plan passed in the face of incred­i­bly stiff, well-resourced oppo­si­tion from com­mu­ni­ties that cur­rent­ly bear no respon­si­bil­i­ty for the waste they gen­er­ate, most notably from the afflu­ent Upper East Side of Manhattan.

It was only a par­tial vic­to­ry, how­ev­er. While the Plan would advance fair­ness in facil­i­ty sit­ing and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce truck impacts from the col­lec­tion and export of waste, it wouldn’t do near­ly enough to address NYC’s over-reliance on land­fill­ing and incin­er­a­tion. It did lead to invest­ment in a new recy­cling facil­i­ty that has allowed the City to expand its res­i­den­tial recy­cling col­lec­tion, but as not­ed above NYC has a long way to go on this front and needs con­sid­er­ably more infra­struc­ture if it is going to improve upon its low recy­cling rates. EJ orga­ni­za­tions, envi­ron­men­tal groups, pub­lic health orga­ni­za­tions and oth­ers sup­port­ed the Plan as an impor­tant, hard-fought step for­ward, rec­og­niz­ing that there was much more to be done.

Mixed Suc­cess­es in Fight­ing “Waste to Energy”

Over the last sev­er­al decades, local EJ advo­cates and allies have suc­cess­ful­ly fought numer­ous efforts to site incin­er­a­tors in and around NYC. In the recent past, shills for new­er tech­nolo­gies have reg­u­lar­ly poked around NYC com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in search of unwit­ting orga­ni­za­tions that might sup­port their effort to site a new facil­i­ty or con­vert and exist­ing one. Fis­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions have also tout­ed incin­er­a­tion as a prefer­able alter­na­tive to the City’s col­lec­tion and export sys­tem where envi­ron­men­tal con­trols, a union work­force, and increas­ing­ly dis­tant dis­pos­al options have increased the cost of land­fill­ing and one promi­nent main­stream envi­ron­men­tal group has expressed open­ness to the idea. 

Under the Bloomberg admin­is­tra­tion, the City itself also seri­ous­ly con­sid­ered pilot­ing “new and emerg­ing” tech­nolo­gies for han­dling waste. In 2006, a con­sul­tant for the City released a report rec­om­mend­ing that sev­er­al tech­nolo­gies be con­sid­ered for appli­ca­tion in NYC, includ­ing gasi­fi­ca­tion, plas­ma gasi­fi­ca­tion, and pyrol­y­sis. The report made this rec­om­men­da­tion even though its authors were unable to sat­is­fy two core eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria – an inde­pen­dent tech­ni­cal review of the tech­nolo­gies and an inde­pen­dent review of envi­ron­men­tal impacts. 

Based on these rec­om­men­da­tions, in 2012 the city issued a Request for Pro­pos­als (RFP) involv­ing these tech­nolo­gies. The RFP called for appli­ca­tions for demon­stra­tion projects sit­ed with­in or with­in 80 miles of NYC. The 80 mile radius was seen by many as an effort to skirt poten­tial sit­ing bat­tles with­in the City where any pro­pos­al would like­ly require land use changes and thus City Coun­cil approval. Local EJ groups and envi­ron­men­tal allies quick­ly mobi­lized against the RFP, hold­ing demon­stra­tions out­side a brief­ing for prospec­tive appli­cants and at City Hall. We also met with key City offi­cials on sev­er­al occa­sions and, with crit­i­cal assis­tance from GAIA, were able to show City offi­cials that these tech­nolo­gies were dan­ger­ous and unre­li­able and that, con­trary to con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, more sus­tain­able cities in Europe were actu­al­ly mov­ing away from rather than embrac­ing them. Accord­ing to city offi­cials, indus­try respons­es to the RFP but­tressed our argu­ments lead­ing one offi­cial to con­fide that they were deal­ing with “snake oil sales­men.” The RFP’s via­bil­i­ty was also dimin­ished when the City released a report of pre­ferred NYC sites that includ­ed the for­mer Fresh Kills land­fill gen­er­at­ing swift and intense local oppo­si­tion lead­ing the City to with­draw the site from con­sid­er­a­tion. Ulti­mate­ly the City aban­doned the RFP and we were thrilled.

A year lat­er, the City announced that it had final­ized a con­tract with Cov­an­ta for the export and incin­er­a­tion of waste from two of its new MTSs, includ­ing the Upper East Side facil­i­ty men­tioned above.  Even though the City had pre­vi­ous­ly defined its sus­tain­able waste man­age­ment goals as “diver­sion from land­fill­ing,” this move came as a sur­prise to us giv­en the recent aban­don­ment of the RFP. Although EJ groups in NYC fought for the MTSs as a way to reduce bur­dens in their com­mu­ni­ties, at the end of the day we had lit­tle abil­i­ty to shape where that garbage would be sent — the City’s con­tract­ing author­i­ty is broad and requires no review or approval role by the City Coun­cil. For EJ groups in NYC, this only under­scored the urgent need to dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce the amount of waste export­ed to oth­er EJ com­mu­ni­ties for dis­pos­al. Giv­en the parochial nature of waste pol­i­cy in NYC, we also knew that we had to do so in a way that offered tan­gi­ble local benefits.

Trans­form Don’t Trash NYC – Push­ing for Com­pre­hen­sive Sol­id Waste Reform

Over the last year and a half or so, we have built a coali­tion of EJ groups, labor, main­stream envi­ron­men­tal­ists, and oth­ers to tack­le reform of NYC’s “open” com­mer­cial waste sys­tem. In this sys­tem each of the more than 200,000 busi­ness­es in NYC indi­vid­u­al­ly con­tracts for its waste removal from one of 200+ licensed haulers. As a recent report of our coali­tion details, the prob­lems in this sys­tem are legion — exces­sive reliance on land­fill­ing and incin­er­a­tion and atten­dant cli­mate and pub­lic health impacts, redun­dant col­lec­tion routes that cre­ate mil­lions of unnec­es­sary diesel truck miles each year, work­er exploita­tion includ­ing low wages, wage theft, and unhealthy work­ing con­di­tions, and an over­all lack of account­abil­i­ty or abil­i­ty to effec­tive­ly mon­i­tor this sprawl­ing and chaot­ic mar­ket, to name a few. 

In place of this sys­tem, we are push­ing for an exclu­sive zone col­lec­tion sys­tem sim­i­lar to those recent­ly adopt­ed in cities like Los Ange­les and San Jose. Under such a sys­tem haulers would com­pete for exclu­sive col­lec­tion rights with­in spe­cif­ic zones of the City and in return be expect­ed to make com­mit­ments to reduc­ing and recy­cling waste, reduc­ing truck emis­sions and vehi­cle miles trav­elled, and improv­ing work­er com­pen­sa­tion and safe­ty. Although the cam­paign is rel­a­tive­ly young, we’ve had some impor­tant suc­cess­es, includ­ing suc­cess­ful­ly advo­cat­ing for the City to include a zero waste goal in its recent­ly released sus­tain­abil­i­ty plan, and have gained sup­port from key elect­ed officials. 

In expos­ing these grim real­i­ties that escape the aware­ness of most New York­ers, we are high­light­ing the broad impacts of NYC’s waste export. But to build the sup­port we need to move it, we are focus­ing heav­i­ly on the local ben­e­fits of reform – reduced truck traf­fic and diesel emis­sions, improved work­ing con­di­tions, trans­par­ent prices for small busi­ness­es that rewards reduc­tion and recy­cling, increased effi­cien­cy, and eco­nom­ic development. 

Chal­lenges in Build­ing Cross-Com­mu­ni­ty Solidarity

While sol­i­dar­i­ty across EJ com­mu­ni­ties is crit­i­cal, years of advo­cat­ing for more just waste man­age­ment in NYC have dri­ven home just how nar­row­ly self-inter­est­ed pol­i­tics can be. A prime exam­ple of this has been the oppo­si­tion to the MTS on Manhattan’s Upper East Side (UES) men­tioned ear­li­er. While there may be indi­vid­ual excep­tions, by and large the fight around the MTS has nev­er been about one com­mu­ni­ty seek­ing to pre­vent its waste from bur­den­ing anoth­er. In fact, it has been the oppo­site. It has been one afflu­ent com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing to con­tin­ue to bur­den oth­er com­mu­ni­ties with its waste. 

UES oppo­si­tion to the new marine trans­fer sta­tion, which is being built over the East Riv­er, has been incred­i­bly deep-pock­et­ed, no few­er than eight unsuc­cess­ful law­suits have been brought by pri­vate law firms to pre­vent this facil­i­ty from hap­pen­ing to date. Oppo­si­tion groups have paid for numer­ous pub­lic rela­tions firms, lob­by­ists, and researchers over the years and have even bought adver­tise­ment on local TV sta­tions to get out their mes­sage (last year, lob­by­ing dis­clo­sure reports revealed that a start-up three per­son fash­ion law firm had donat­ed $690,000 to the main oppo­si­tion group, Pledge 2 Pro­tect, rais­ing ques­tions about whether the firm was act­ing as a pass-through to shield mon­eyed inter­est from pub­lic scruti­ny and to main­tain a veneer of grass­roots activism). 

This oppo­si­tion has also been cal­lous. Oppo­nents of the facil­i­ty have tried to co-opt the envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice frame despite their tremen­dous resources and even though the medi­an income around the facil­i­ty is $91,000/year (com­pared to a medi­an income of $21,000/year in the South Bronx area that hosts nine pri­vate trans­fer sta­tions and oth­er pol­lut­ing facil­i­ties). Upper East Side oppo­nents have also had the gall to accuse life­long EJ advo­cates of racism. At a City Coun­cil hear­ing last year, one UES leader tes­ti­fied that sup­port­ers of the facil­i­ty could only be moti­vat­ed by an inter­est in “sock­ing it to white kids” and anoth­er called out local EJ lead­ers as “hyp­o­crit­i­cal­ly racist” in his Huff­in­g­ton Post blog. 

And although oppo­nents have recent­ly begun to see a shared inter­est with Chester res­i­dents, they have been remark­ably indif­fer­ent to how oth­er com­mu­ni­ties are impact­ed by the waste they gen­er­ate, eager­ly latch­ing on to any pro­pos­al that could be viewed as an alter­na­tive to their facil­i­ty. For exam­ple, they have pushed out a num­ber of reports advo­cat­ing for the con­tin­ued over­bur­den­ing of oth­er NYC com­mu­ni­ties with trans­fer sta­tions, claim­ing that impacts on the UES will be unac­cept­able and cat­a­stroph­ic while sim­i­lar, but greater impacts in less afflu­ent com­mu­ni­ties of col­or are accept­able and can be mitigated. 

UES oppo­nents have also enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced incin­er­a­tion so long as the waste isn’t trans­ferred in their com­mu­ni­ty first. In a 2014 report, Pledge 2 Pro­tect crit­i­cized the City for fail­ing to “take advan­tage of the safest, most sus­tain­able waste-to-ener­gy tech­nolo­gies,” includ­ing those that use com­bus­tion as a means to “cre­at­ing a tru­ly sus­tain­able sol­id waste man­age­ment sys­tem.” Sim­i­lar­ly, at a recent hear­ing, Coun­cil Mem­ber Ben Kal­los, who rep­re­sents the UES, was asked about the fact that his district’s waste is cur­rent­ly incin­er­at­ed in Newark. He respond­ed that “New Jer­sey… is not a bor­ough [of New York City] as far as I’m aware” and thus had no legit­i­mate claim to be treat­ed fair­ly. Coun­cil Mem­ber Kal­los went on to say that New Jer­sey res­i­dents “enjoy” incin­er­at­ing Manhattan’s waste because they get paid to do so.

None of this is raised as a crit­i­cism of folks fight­ing the long-term burn­ing of NYC waste at the Chester incin­er­a­tor. Over the years we have cer­tain­ly sought to build strate­gic part­ner­ships with orga­ni­za­tions that may not share our val­ues but have inter­ests that align. But it does point out how tricky these alliances can be and how impor­tant it is to rec­og­nize them for what they are. Undoubt­ed­ly there are indi­vid­u­als on the UES who sin­cere­ly embrace the peo­ple of Chester’s cause, but just as undoubt­ed­ly, past behav­ior shows that most oppo­nents of the UES facil­i­ty would aban­don this cause in a heart­beat if the City found a way to get waste to Chester that didn’t take it through their com­mu­ni­ty first. 

Ulti­mate­ly, we agree with folks at the Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work and oth­ers that the most effec­tive way that NYC can stop send­ing its waste to be burned in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or is to move toward zero waste, an idea that we’ve been able to get some long over­due local traction.