Tuesday, September 18, 2007

One State's Trash Is Another's Treasure

An old adage states one man's trash is another's treasure. If it works on an individual level, why not on the macro? New York generates enormous amounts of trash and often ships it to other states for a price. This time however, both sides win without one being stunk up by rotting garbage. With all of the new subway cars in Manhattan (btw the new N trains are awesome) the old ones need to go somewhere, and New Jersey wants to take them off of our hands.

From The New York Times:

New Jersey will ask New York for 600 decommissioned subway cars to be sunk off the coast to create artificial reefs to attract fish, lobsters and other marine life, New Jersey environmental officials said yesterday. New Jersey, which has the East Coast’s largest artificial reef complex, stopped accepting subway cars in 2003 after environmentalists raised concerns that the cars might leach high levels of asbestos as they disintegrated. But New Jersey’s environmental protection commissioner, Lisa P. Jackson, wrote in a staff memo yesterday that studies conducted by federal agencies and by other states that have sunk subway cars satisfied her that asbestos did not pose a serious threat. Cindy Zipf, the executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a critic of the subway plan, said yesterday that she hoped New Jersey officials would ask for the subway cars with the least amount of asbestos.

So with only a small amount of asbestos released into the Atlantic (not like we have to breathe it right?), we can clear up our railyards and New Jersey can build on their reef system, helping the marine ecosystem in the process.