Latest Round in the Garbage Wars

Raising signs calling for "environmental justice" and shouting "NIMBY no, justice yes," residents of the Bronx and Brooklyn circled the office of State Assemblymember Deborah Glick last week.

The protestors, members of the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods said they are tired of getting dumped on, quite literally, and want the state to clear the way for a recycling station in downtown Manhattan.

The station is intended to ease the burden on the Bronx and Brooklyn, which now take most of the city's trash, and is part of an effort to make the city's solid waste management system fairer and more environmentally friendly. But in the latest development in the city's garbage wars, several Manhattan Assembly members and parks groups want to block the station. Glick, whose district abuts the site, and others said the peninsula simply is not a good place for the recycling station largely because it would impinge on Hudson River Park. Their critics, however, have accused of NIMBYism (not in my backyard) sentiments.

"It's Manhattan using its privilege," said Elizabeth Yeampierre , chair of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and executive director of UPROSE, a Latino community group based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. "We want to let Glick know she is in the way. She is in the way of borough equity."

As the hours in the current state legislative session dwindle, some organizations and politicians still hope to get this final piece of the Solid Waste Management Plan approved in Albany. Although the City Council approved the plan last summer -- a decision mired in years of debate -- the state must still vote to allow construction of the recycling facility and education center on the Gansevoort peninsula in the Hudson River near 14th Street.