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What Happens To NYC鈥檚 3.2 Million Tons Of Trash | Big Business | Business Insider - YouTube
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[3]
this is just three days worth of trash
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most coming from new york city and that
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claw is taking it to be burned into
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electricity but we're not actually in
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new york city we're in jersey once the
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garbage man comes and picks it up you
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don't think any more about it but it has
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a long way to go after that none of new
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yorkers waste is processed in the city
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instead it ends up as far away as ohio
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pennsylvania and even south carolina so
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getting trash from here to here takes
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thousands of workers trucks trains
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cranes and even barges operating
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non-stop to ship waste across the east
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coast rain snow hail storm there's no
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stopping us and it all cost the city
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hundreds of millions here's what
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actually happens to new york city's 3.2
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million tons of trash a year
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new york city's department of sanitation
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sends its fleet of 2 000 garbage trucks
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to start picking up at 5 a.m you have to
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keep active some guys like to work out
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some guys don't basically it depends on
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you what do you do
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me i don't work out
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this is my workout this is my daily
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workout that's frank a 23-year veteran
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sanitation worker well you get immune to
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the smell you don't smell garbage you
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smell money
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checking to see how solid it is you can
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tell when the truck is full
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frank heads to the dump station in the
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upper east side by then the sun's coming
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up
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we are currently at 91st street mts
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doors will open as the truck comes in
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and there's radiation detectors that
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will read the truck trucks pause at the
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weigh station to help the city keep
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track of how much trash new yorkers
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produce then handles tilt the hopper
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then she'll push the blade and the blade
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will push the material all the way out
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to clear the whole truck
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it's roughly 450 to 600 tons a day
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tractors move the trash into the
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containers beneath the ground it's sort
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of a dance one fdl will clear the wall
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and one fpl will below containers
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getting the material containerized as
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quickly as possible and sealed keeps
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that smell down a stamper then packs in
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the garbage mattresses are used like a
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sponge to stop up anything left over
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when we have garbage on the floor it'll
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take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to
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load a container once the department of
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sanitation seals a container and slides
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it out to the dock responsibility then
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goes to covanta the waste to energy
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company handles two marine transfer
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stations in the city containers are
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picked up by the crane and put on the
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barge 48 containers go on the barge
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every one of these containers represents
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a truckload that we've taken off of the
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city streets and out of the tunnels
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reducing carbon emissions and reducing
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congestion and wear and tear on the
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city's infrastructure a tug attaches to
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the loaded trash barge tug captain jason
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harris is now in charge
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he gets a go-ahead for a 9 30 a.m
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departure
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[Music]
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what you see here is is called hell's
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gate this is the upper end of the east
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river tides play a major factor in the
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times that we can transfer barges you
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can't go against the tide when it's max
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tied it's too strong we would actually
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come to a dead stop on this boat and
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barge you wait until you can go with it
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quite often a barge gets gets filled up
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and we will have to wait two three maybe
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four hours before the tide is it is in
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the favor he navigates this heavy load
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safely along one of the busiest
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waterways in the world down the east
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river through new york harbor to staten
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island
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three hours later the tug and barge back
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up into the global transfer station it
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is an inherently dangerous operation to
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move heavy equipment overhead then a
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train takes it to one of covanta's waste
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to energy facilities it can also get
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there via truck all of manhattan's
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residential trash goes to waste energy
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facilities like this one to be burned
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and turned into electricity this
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facility processes up to a million tons
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of waste annually once the trucks scale
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in and come up to the tipping floor they
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dump in front of one of these bays
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tractors push the trash into a massive
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storage pit 93 feet deep and 270 feet
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long between eight and nine thousand
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tons are in the refuse pit it's about
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three to four days worth of trash
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a giant grapple claw descends over the
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trash
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in one swoop it can pick up as much as
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one trash truck carries
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[Music]
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the claw builds a wall of trash to
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prevent it from avalanching onto the
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tipping floor it also helps to make more
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space for incoming refuse
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do you look at garbage a very different
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way since i've been working here we
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create a lot of garbage as as a
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population
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two claws work together in tandem
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dumping trash into hoppers leading to
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the incinerator
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romeo's an expert giant claw operator 21
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years of flying the crane there is no
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shortage of fuel for our boilers toy
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story is the first thing everyone thinks
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of
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disney actually got inspiration for the
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toy story 3 incinerator sequence from a
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covanta plant
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the incinerators burn the trash at
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thousand degrees fahrenheit it takes one
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to two hours to burn an entire hopper
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load we've now entered the control room
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area of the plant so this is the brain
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of the operation yes it is
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and here's your brain
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he's got camera views of the combustion
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zone how important are you for this
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place running correctly how important am
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i i am the guy
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i am the guy he's in the hot seat
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russell monitors as the furnace heats up
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steam turning this turbine and
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generating enough energy to power this
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plant and 46 000 homes in the region
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after everything's burned all that's
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left over is ash and metal this magnet
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pulls off enough metal to make 21 000
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cars the leftover ash goes to cover
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landfills
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next the plant tackles those nasty fumes
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but burning trash causes first leftover
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gases go through a scrubber reactor a
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lime slurry cleans any acid gases and
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activated carbon absorbs pollutants then
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it goes through a bag house basically a
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bunch of filters
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so what's left coming out of that
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smokestack constituents of the flue gas
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is what's in normal air like nitrogen
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carbon dioxide moisture the alternative
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to this would be going to a landfill
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waste to energy does produce co2
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emissions but in a year this process
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eliminates a million tons of co2
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emissions a landfill would have produced
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we generate a very small amount of
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methane the methane we offset from a
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landfill results in an actual decrease
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of co2 emissions
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the city hopes to keep moving trash on
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waterways to facilities like this one
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it's all part of its goal of becoming
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zero waste to landfill by 2030 but that
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is becoming harder and harder to reach
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only about 30 percent of new york city's
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waste turns into energy the rest ends up
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in harmful methane producing landfills
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as far away as south carolina and ohio
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and it takes a significant investment to
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move it every year exporting trash costs
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the city about 400 million dollars so
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why does new york city send its trash so
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far away
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in 1881 new york city streets were
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notoriously filthy so dirty people were
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getting sick so the department of
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sanitation was established to clean up
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the streets and the department did help
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mop up the city but the city quickly ran
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out of room to put all of its trash in
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the early 1900s the city turned to
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dumping trash into the ocean even though
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it was illegal as much as 80 percent of
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the city's trash ended up in the sea
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this continued until 1934 when a supreme
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court case forced the city to stop ocean
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dumping
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in the 70s incinerators used for much of
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the 1900s were closed down because they
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didn't meet the epa's clean air
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standards so the city opened up
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landfills across the five boroughs
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including at one point the world's
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largest in 1973 new york even built out
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lower manhattan using trash mounds but
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even that wasn't enough with nowhere
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else to put it the city began sending
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its waste to other states most of the
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landfills in this area have been closed
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down so the available landfills are
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getting further and further away
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exporting trash is a costly practice
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with a big environmental footprint and
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it puts the burden on communities far
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from these shiny skyscrapers
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for now new york city's only choice is
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to keep exporting the trash but
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ultimately the department says the best
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solution would be getting new yorkers to
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waste less altogether trash is like one
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of those things that you put it outside
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and forget about it i think everybody
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should know what happens to what they
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get rid of if you know where it's going
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and you don't like where it's going
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maybe you'll find ways to recycle things
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i would never take anything home because
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my wife wouldn't allow it
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but there'll be a butt there if i see
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something that's star wars i'm gonna
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look for it and make if it's good i'm
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gonna take it home
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