The Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board (MSWAB) is an all volunteer advisory board, appointed by the Manhattan Borough President and charged with helping NYC advance toward its zero waste goals. MSWAB has been an active ZWNY member since inception.
Late last year, the NYC Dept of Sanitation (DSNY), published its next draft local solid waste management plan (LSWMP) that will guide the city’s waste management practices for the next 10 years. In response to the draft SWMP, all 4 borough SWABs worked together to draft extensive comments, and held public hearings. As a result, approximately 40 additional stakeholders testified and provided comments, including highly compelling comments from those communities directly and adversely impacted by the waste NYC sends to landfills & incinerators in their communities. In addition, the Queens SWAB held a separate hearing and submitted comments from 17 stakeholders.
ZWNY provided a letter in support of the SWAB’s concerns & comments with 12 additional organizations also signing on to express support. Prior to receiving our now over 70 comments, DSNY had only received 18 comments on the draft LSWMP from the public – a great example of how much more impact we can have when we work together to amplify our voices. MSWAB is thankful to ZWNY and all the organizations that signed on to our comments.
Details on where NYC waste goes can be found on tracknyctrash.com on the residential waste export dashboard. This extensive dashboard on DSNY collected waste and recycling tonnage and waste export, was a joint project by the Manhattan and Brooklyn SWABs that launched last year. A demonstration of this dashboard will be included as part of NYC Open data week which starts March 22. Please zoom in!
In support of one of the communities impacted by NYC waste, we also encourage you to review the petition to close the Seneca Meadows landfill. At press time, there were only 39 sign ons so please sign and share far and wide. Through our collective efforts we hope to add hundreds if not thousands of names. Please do what you can to share this petition. Together we can prevent further expansion and ultimately ensure closure of this toxic landfill!
For more information contact Matthew Civello at matt@portfoliosoft.com
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