Waste station a waste, would fail to cut trash burden: study

Critics also claim $554M facility on Upper East Side will add to pollution levels

Asphalt Green Park and East 91st waste transfer site
Asphalt Green Park and East 91st waste transfer site

Pledge 2 Protect, a coalition of nonprofits and local businesses against the proposed 91st Street waste-transfer station, has commissioned a report calling on the city to dispose of the plan.

California environment research firm Gladstein, Neandross and Associates found that roughly 1.6 percent of commercial trash in the city would go to the new station. That level is considered too low to reduce the burden on low-income neighborhoods outside of Manhattan, the study said. Opponents of the projects have expressed concerns that it would heighten pollution and make a more harmful environment for children.

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The station is expected to cost the city about $554 million over two decades, according to an Independent Budget Office analysis from 2012, DNAinfo reported. Advocates of the project argue that it will lessen the trash burden of other neighborhoods in Manhattan.

Pledge2Project has distributed mailers mostly in the East Harlem and Yorkville neighborhoods, and handed out surgical masks in protest, as previously reported. [Crain’s]Mark Maurer