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Burn trash without water6/10/2023 Last fall, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection inspectors crossed the Delaware to conduct “multiple odor inspections” and determined that “the location, type, frequency, duration and intensity of the odors detected constitute a public nuisance,” according to a notice of violation issued to Waste Management in October. We’ll turn on our misters and deal with it.'” When Florence residents would complain via a Waste Management hotline, he says, they’d be told, “‘We got a bad load in. It was like sitting next to a trash can,” Hamilton recalls. “Last summer, three or four days out of seven it was really just undesirable to be outside on our property. But the stink has persisted, Florence residents say. In 1998, Waste Management settled a lawsuit with Florence residents, agreeing to pay $3.1 million in damages and take steps to reduce odors. “Predominantly, the wind blows west to east so when there are odor problems, they blow right to Florence. “It’s been a constant problem ever since they put the landfill in,” Hamilton says. Waste Management pays host fees to municipalities in the Keystone State-2014 budget documents indicate the firm would provide $3.7 million of Tullytown’s $5.7 million in revenue-but it’s the Garden State that’s downwind. Both Tullytown and GROWS North are operated by Waste Management, whose current contracts with New York City are worth $3.8 billion.īoth those landfills sit in Pennsylvania but on New Jersey’s doorstep, and that’s created tensions for years. Nearby is the GROWS North landfill, which accepted 521,000 tons of New York waste in 2014, second only to the Waverly site in volume received from DSNY. Tullytown was the 11th biggest recipient of New York City trash last year. The city will face tough choices to reach the mayor’s goal, including whether to wind down shipments to landfills by increasing its use of plants that incinerate trash to generate energy.Įven without action by the de Blasio administration, however, the landfill landscape is changing because of work by residents and regulators at a few of the sites New York City dumps on.ĭave Hamilton has lived in Florence, N.J., since the 1960s and has smelled garbage since 1988 when the Tullytown Landfill opened just across the Delaware River. The city’s fiscal 2016 executive budget calls for $368 million to be spent on waste disposal next year alone.Īt the Earth Day unveiling of the his OneNYC strategy Mayor de Blasio committed New York City to a “zero waste to landfills” goal by 2030, touching off debate about what his pledge really entailed and how the city could possibly achieve it. The Department of Sanitation currently has contracts for municipal solid-waste export worth $8.2 billion with 13 companies. The road trip our garbage takes is not a cheap one. The top recipient in 2014, Atlantic Waste landfill in Waverly, Va., accepted 794,000 tons of New York City refuse last year. Almost all the rest heads to one of five landfills in New York or 24 other facilities spread around Connecticut, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. Only about 16 percent of it gets recycled. New York City’s Department of Sanitation collects more than 12,600 tons of material from households and institutions every day. “There’s a lot happening here around what I think of as an assault on this area of New York,” Silver says. They are also troubled by the height of the growing mound at the landfill, which at 275 feet is the tallest manmade structure for miles, and the truck traffic that hauls an average of 5,500 tons of trash to the landfill daily. It isn’t just the stink that bothers Silver and other members of the group Concerned Citizens of Seneca County, which has battled against the landfill for six years.
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