M.S. Thesis: Siting of Waste-To-Energy Facilities in New York City Using GIS Technology
By Monica M. DeAngelo
Advisor: Prof. Nickolas J. Themelis
GIS Advisor: Prof. Yuri Gorokhovich
Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering
Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science
Columbia University
May 2004
The residential refuse of New York City (NYC) is collected curbside by the New York City Department of Sanitation (DOS) fleet of nearly 1,500 trucks. Most of the Manhattan generated municipal solid waste is transported to a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) facility in New Jersey. The refuse of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island is collected by DOS and delivered to private waste transfer stations in the City where it is transferred to 20-ton long haul transport trucks and then transported to landfills in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio. Some of the Bronx municipal solid waste is delivered to a private transfer station located in Harlem River Yards where it is loaded into containers and transported by rail to disposal facilities in other states.
This study examined the potential of replacing several waste transfer stations (WTS) in Bronx and Brooklyn by implementing two new WTE facilities, one in Bronx and another in Brooklyn, thus reducing the dependence of New York City on other states for landfilling its wastes by about 50%.