Local Lawmakers Prepared To Trash Mayor's Waste-To-Energy Ideas

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City Hall says turning garbage into energy will be a new and cleaner way to take care of the city's trash, but opponents are already saying "not in my backyard" and are questioning whether the emerging technology is really all that green. NY1's Courtney Gross filed the following report.

"Waste to energy" is a technology to create energy out of trash, sometimes with extreme temperatures and sometimes with microorganisms. It's something Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to bring to New York.

"Today, technology is very different and an awful lot of cities are no longer trucking, digging up the road and spending an enormous amount of money to pay some other place to take their waste," said Bloomberg.

The city is currently accepting proposals for a pilot project, including one that could end up on Staten Island.

"If you could on Staten Island turn the waste that they generate into energy and get trucks off the road, trucking it away and reduce the city's cost, everybody on Staten Island would benefit," said the mayor.

The borough is not warming up to the idea, as the Fresh Kills area of the island was the city's landfill for more than a half-century.

"Staten Islanders have a chip on our shoulder. It's a pretty big chip. It's 55 years old, it's 2,000 acres large," said Staten Island Councilman James Oddo.

This Fresh Kills site is not the only area a waste-to-energy facility could end up in New York City. It also could be in manufacturing or industrial areas, places like the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn or the South Bronx.

The Sanitation Department would also accept a proposal within an 80-mile radius of the five boroughs.

The proposal would not be a large-scale incinerator but small-scale, accepting 450 tons of trash, at first, each day.

Opponents say the technology has not been tested in the United States.

"The city should be spending more time and energy boosting the recycling rates and consider thermal waste to energy sometime in the future when they are over 50 percent recycling," said Eddie Bautista of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.

Eventually, should the city go with a proposal for Fresh Kills, it will need approval from the City Council. That might be a long haul.

"Do yourselves a favor? Go look somewhere else. Don't do this to any community. You're certainly not going to do it at Fresh Kills," said Oddo.

The city is accepting proposals until June.

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