The Sanitation Commissioner on How the City Plans to Clean Up
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Mayor Bloomberg this week will release a plan that will detail how the city intends to handle its trash over the next 20 years. The New York Sun reported on Thursday that that the city will begin allowing private firms to deliver some commercial waste to the city’s 59th Street transfer station and will start distributing the garbage from commercial institutions across the five boroughs, meaning Brooklyn and the Bronx will no longer have to take most of Manhattan’s commercial waste. The Sun’s City Hall bureau chief, Dina Temple-Raston, sat down with the sanitation commissioner, John Doherty, to discuss New York’s new plan and the garbage problems the city must tackle now that the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island is closed.
Q: One of the discussions that has been floating around ahead of the mayor’s plan is that the 91st Street and Harlem marine transfer stations are not going to open. I also understand there will be a long-term incineration contract with New Jersey and the 59th Street Marine Transfer Station will be set aside for commercial waste. Will the mayor address alternative technologies as well?
A: There will be a piece in the solid waste management plan about that. I think these ideas are going to be looked at over time. Everybody will complain about environmental problems, but I believe the technology is good – but the problem is that no one wants a facility in their neighborhood. When the solid waste management plan comes out and says we’re going to use this MTS and we’re not going to use this MTS, there are going to be people who say great and some people who say how come it’s in my neighborhood? So there is going to be that give and take. And there will be some give and take by the time the plan is finally adopted by the City Council.
What will the plan look like, physically?
The initial document might be an inch or so thick. It has a draft environmental study with it. It will have a nine-to-10-page introduction that kind of sells the plan, and then there will be sections on recycling, commercial waste, and alternative technologies. This is going to be laid out as a package. This is what New York City is going to do to dispose of its waste and that includes the commercial waste. It’ll also have a piece in there about commercial waste and bio solids and dredging spoils.
Right now waste is going to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. If they stop taking our garbage, what’s the backup plan?
We would like to get some waste here in New York State. We put out an expression of interest and honestly there wasn’t much interest so I don’t know how well that is going to work. I think it is important we shift waste to a landfill that has a hosting agreement in New York State. There is a lot of work to be done in that area. When fees go up, when you do these contracts, that is going to be the cost of doing business. If they did a prohibition on interstate exports, that would be challenged in the state for quite a while. It is always out there. It is always a threat. Pennsylvania is slowly tightening up so Pennsylvania is not going to be an option for much longer.
What about privatizing the MTS?
Right now the DOS will operate the facilities. There is an issue there. There is a local law that basically requires you to jump through hoops if you are privatizing facilities. Right now DOS operates them.
What about privatizing more generally, say on the waste disposal end?
The question is whether with the unions you create a labor problem. There is nobody in this country who can come in and handle the volume we have. If garbage lays on the street, people won’t tolerate it for too long. When you are thinking of privatization you have to think of the union’s response to it whether on the collection end or disposal end. Given that the disposal end is far less people, it still would be a hot button issue.
If you look at some of the re quests for proposals you have issued some deal with commercial waste, some dealt with running and building an MTS, and another dealt with garbage in Staten Island. Where are these projects?
The facility on Staten Island is about 85% completed construction. We are negotiating with the company Allied to take the material, initially by truck, and the rail line will be up in calendar year 2006. Once the rail line is in, it’ll go out by rail. So we’re getting close on that. I see it coming on operation late spring next year. That will be the first piece of the plan, although this was in the old plan. That’ll be the first piece that will come on. The plan will use some private land transfer stations – they would probably come on next. The RPF’s for this, we have those proposals, it is what we’re looking at, and when the [mayor’s] plan comes out people will know what is going on. Then it will be clearer to everyone what the mix is. Are we going to use all eight transfer stations? Is it going to be a mix of those and private transfer stations? That will come out in the plan.
You have been seen as not a big proponent of recycling in the past, yet you were singing its praises during a press conference announcing a new recycling center, Hugo Neu, several weeks ago. Have you been converted?
I don’t think I have been converted. I think I’ve said that we have to be realistic. If someone says to me, “Is recy cling cheaper?” Right now it is not. Will it be in the future is another question. Environmental issues surrounding it, no one has really done a study of it so probably it is not fair for me to say because I haven’t done a study either. Looking it very quickly on the surface, we’re running more trucks out there [when recycling]. Hugo Neu will cut down on truck traffic long-haul. Maybe it balances off in the long run, I don’t know. I think, though, that we’re getting excited about it because now we have two 20-year contracts. But we see it getting more and more expensive to export the waste out of the city. Even with the new plan, I don’t think there will be a reduction in our costs. I don’t think disposing of garbage in the Northeast, particularly in New York City, where we have so much of it, will probably go up.The plan when it comes out will help stabilize the costs over the long term because of the long-term contracts as part of the solid waste management.
But if you try to look in the future, you say, okay, if waste is going to be more expensive, when does it start to become on the same footing, financially, as recycling? One hopes that happens but I think it is more of a public-policy issue. If the elected officials decide they want recycling, even though in the short term it is expensive, hopefully in the long term we at least break even or it will be worth our while. We in Sanitation will say what we think about it, but that doesn’t mean in any way we will try to short-circuit anything. We’re here to do the job and recycling is here to stay. There’s no question about it. The mayor brought back the plastic and brought back the glass and now it is here to stay. No one is going to back away from it anymore.
So Hugo Neu was going to do all this for the city. Has that contract been signed yet? What is the timetable?
It is going to happen in this fiscal year, maybe later this year, beginning of next year. I think the important things have been put in place. We’ve reached an agreement on where the facility will be. There is an understanding that they are going to spend $25 million. Economic Development has to do some work on the pier down there. So it is going to take a couple of years, but the commitment is there. The new facility will improve the marketability of recyclables.
Will the new recycling facility be expanded to include batteries and electronics?
That is something we will be addressing in the mayor’s waste management plan. Right now if someone wants to get rid of dry cell batteries we have dropoff sites available on Saturdays. There is the ability to get rid of it.
So the mayor’s plan is basically coming out in three phases?
The first piece was Hugo Neu. The next piece now is commercial waste. We’re going to start telling people about how we see the commercial waste of the city being handled and trying to make it more equitable for the different communities around the city. And then the final piece will be the whole plan. That will be out later in the week.