New York City Transfer Station Plan Could Triple Costs – Report

New York City’s proposal to replace existing waste transfer stations with a new marine transfer station will triple the cost of waste management for the city, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO).

The IBO estimated that the waste management costs per ton at a new facility proposed for the city’s Upper East Side would be $278 in its first year of operation, 2016. The current interim plan of shipping waste to transfer stations in New Jersey and Yonkers, N.Y., is $93 by comparison, said Ronnie Lowenstein, director of the IBO, in a letter to City Council Member Benjamin Kallos.

The higher cost per ton for the marine transfer station is due primarily to “the more costly multimodal method of transporting waste from transfer station to its final destination via barge and rail,” Lowenstein said in his letter.

The present value of the 20-year cost of exporting waste to the existing transfer stations is $253.2 million, compared with $632.5 million for constructing and operating the new marine transfer station.

“This study confirms what we have been telling elected officials and the business community for more than a year – reducing private sector transfer station capacity will dramatically increase the cost of waste disposal for our customers.  In addition, many good paying jobs will be lost," said David Biderman, vice president of government affairs/chapter operations & general counsel for the Washington-based National Waste & Recycling Association, in an e-mail.