A group of waterfront activists in Williamsburg and Greenpoint will lead Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum on a tour of neighborhoods they say are being buried in waste.
The neighborhoods, which make up Community Board 1 in Brooklyn, are home to 16 waste-transfer stations. The activists say the stations process 41 percent of the city’s trash and generate 4,000 truck trips a day, but a Sanitation Department spokesman refused to confirm that number.
“Ever since Fresh Kills landfill was closed, waste processing has not been properly regulated, so my neighborhood ends up being dumped on,” said Councilmember Diana Reyna (D-Williamsburg). “Seventy-five percent of the trash we process is coming from Manhattan. That’s a disparity.”
The Department of Sanitation is currently putting together its once-every-two-decade Solid Waste Management Plan, which is due out this summer.
Reyna, as well as members of Organizations United for Trash Reduction and Garbage Equity (OUTRAGE), are calling for the city’s mothballed marine transfer stations to come back into service.
Marine transfer stations allow for each borough to handle its own trash and greatly reduce truck traffic. But they were shut down after the city closed the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.