Tags: landfill

Freshkills Park is a story of environmental reclamation, the impacts of which reach far beyond the park’s boundaries. In reclaiming the land once occupied by the world’s largest landfill for forests, wetlands, and new grasslands, Staten Islanders at large have reclaimed their fresh air, scenic views, and recreation opportunities.

“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.

What is recyclable and what is trash? This is a question recycling utility owners find themselves asking more and more often. While it is common practice to recycle plastic soda bottles, detergent containers, and grocery bags, recently recycling facilities are having a tougher time determining what is worth recycling.

Every January, many cities are stuck dealing with an influx of Christmas trees after they’ve been removed from cozy homes and cast into the city’s waste management system. While Christmas trees may often be left out for landfill dumping, some municipalities and environmentalists have come up with ways to recycle them, keeping trees out of the waste stream.

Last week, the Freshkills Park Team had the pleasure of meeting with a group of city officials and their consultants from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Addis Ababa’s Repi Solid Waste Disposal Site, a 40 year old open dump, has recently been closed and the City has installed a methane capture and flaring system.

At more than 20 million people, metro Manila is the one of the densest places on earth with an average of 37,000 people per square mile. Quezon City sits within this sprawling megalopolis and is home to the Payatas Landfill, one of 13 sites that take in the area’s 11,000 tons of waste per day.

A bill was recently passed to ban Polystyrene Foam (also known as Styrofoam) in New York City’s food service, joining cities like Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Seattle; and Amherst, Massachusetts. Most recycling programs, including New York City’s, do not accept Foam Plastics for recycling because the material necessitates separate processing and must be kept exceptionally clean.

The Arsenal Gallery at Central Park will host Freshkills Park on Wednesday July 10th at 6:00 p.m. as Angelyn Chandler, Capital Program Manager at Freshkills Park, discusses the park’s history and future plans in “Uncommon Ground.” The event is free and part of the Land Art Generator Institute exhibition, please RSVP with artandantiquities@parks.nyc.gov

April was National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, we asked fans of Freshkills Park to submit a haiku inspired by the park. We split the entries into two categories, Adult and Youth, and our judges selected three Adult winners and two Youth winners.

Freshkills Park CELEBRATES National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month which means it is time for the fifth annual Freshkills Park Haiku Contest!  We will be celebrating by asking you to share your impressions, experiences, thoughts and ideas of what Freshkills Park is, will be, and what it means to you- in haiku form.

An upcoming documentary entitled Landfill Harmonic chronicles the work of Favio Chavez, who is using trash to inspire his local community in Cateura, Paraguay.  The documentary follows Chavez, landfill technician and director of the appropriately named Recycled Orchestra, as he constructs musical instruments made of trash sourced directly from the landfill.