Urban Omnibus: “Ted Nabavi Turns Hazards into Riches”
Ted Nabavi surveys an aerial photo of Fresh Kills. Image: Urban Omnibus.
“I always wanted to get into environmental science to clean up hazardous waste,” Ted Nabavi said in his recent interview with Urban Omnibus. Ted has been working with DSNY for over 25 years, currently as the Director of Waste Management Engineering for the Bureau of Solid Waste Management. As the person responsible for environmental monitoring programs at the former Fresh Kills Landfill, he’s seen the site transform from garbage dump to the landscape we see today.
As part of their Citymakers series, Urban Omnibus featured Ted Nabavi as a New Yorker “working outside the public eye to address the city’s daily needs and craft its future.” The result is an informative article about what happens to landfills after they close and the technology involved with DSNY’s current maintenance and operations at the Freshkills Park site. “We are known pretty much all over for the technology,” he said. “People from as far away as Europe visit us to inspect our gas and leachate collection systems because of their magnitude. So what we do on Staten Island is not done anywhere else on this scale.”
