All Aboard The Trash Train!

One of the best things about Mayor Bloomberg in my view was his PlaNYC initiatives. It was a bold program and although not as much of it has been implemented, the overreaching goal is sound. One part of the PlaNYC is to make our garbage more eco-friendly. While much of that is done by citizens not wasting as much, the way we haul the refuse must also be taken into consideration. Using trains instead of trucks to dump garbage is a smart idea, especially when your destination is in Virginia.

From NY1:

With the sound of a bell, dozens of tractor trailers are off the city's streets. From now on, 950 tons of garbage created by North Brooklyn residents will be taken daily by trains, not trucks, to a landfill in Virginia.

It's a move, Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimates, will eliminate 40 tractor trailer trips each day, a total of 13,000 each year.

"It's not only going to help reduce congestion on the borough's streets and highways, it's going to improve the air in neighborhoods that have been unjustly saddled with the responsibility of handling people's waste," said Bloomberg.

Making neighborhoods responsible for their own trash is the cornerstone of the mayor's solid waste management plan.

That means his own borough, my borough and everyone else in Manhattan has to have their trash taken care of. Not that we have to literally take our trash bags to a barge, but the county government has to set up transfer stations like that in North Brooklyn. Getting those tractor-trailers off the highways is essential for the environment. Whether or not each borough should take care of their own is the best way is up for debate, but somehow it has to get done.