This Wednesday, I was proud to release a long-term waste management plan that will allow us to close the Fresh Kills Landfill, as planned, on December 31, 2001, bringing New York City into the 21st Century with a waste management system that ends the City's 50 years of reliance on Fresh Kills.
For far too long, every borough took its waste to Staten Island with no comprehensive strategy for how to address what was a growing environmental hazard, and a growing blight on the quality of life of Staten Island residents. The skeptics said the City would never come up with a solution - and previous administrations made no concerted attempt to do so.
Once again, we are proud to be disproving the skeptics and reversing years of pessimism. In our new plan, the most sensible and environmentally sound plan the City has ever had, each borough will handle its own waste for export - utilizing the City's existing marine transfer stations and adding no additional truck traffic on our streets.
To handle the new plan, the City will develop five waste export facilities which will allow the Department of Sanitation to shift approximately 13,000 tons of solid waste now disposed at Fresh Kills Landfill on a daily basis, to out-of-City disposal sites. All in all, the plan will make New York City a cleaner, more environmentally healthy, and more pleasant place for all New Yorkers.