NYLCV To NYC Mayoral Candidates:

Solid Waste Management Plan Must Be Comprehensive

   The New York League of Conservation Voters, which works to make environmental sustainability a top political priority in New York, today called on all New York City mayoral candidates to support the comprehensive approach to solid waste as embraced in the current Solid Waste Management Plan.

 

Passed in 2006 with strong support from New Yorkers, city leaders and environmental organizations, the Solid Waste Management Plan revolutionized the way New York handles its garbage. Prior to the plan’s implementation, the overwhelming majority of the city’s garbage was trucked into low-income and minority neighborhoods outside of Manhattan. For decades, those communities faced disproportionate environmental burdens including noise, reduced air quality and odors.

The Solid Waste Management Plan addressed this environmental injustice by requiring each borough to handle its own share of waste. The plan also helped clean the air and reduce quality-of-life complaints by establishing a system of marine transfer stations to reduce truck traffic and transport waste more efficiently. The locations of the marine transfer stations were carefully selected after exhaustive studies and community input.

“The strength of the Solid Waste Management Plan is its comprehensive nature. If one marine transfer station in Manhattan is eliminated, the burden simply shifts back to other stations and other boroughs – undermining the success of the entire effort,” said NYLCV President Marcia Bystryn. “Environmental and environmental justice organizations fought for the current Solid Waste Management Plan for many years. New York must not go back to the polluting and unfair ways of the past.”

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The New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV) was founded in 1989 as a nonpartisan, policy-making and political action organization that works to make environmental protection a top priority with elected officials, decision makers, and voters by evaluating incumbent performance and endorsing and electing environmental leaders to office in New York State.

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