Last Sunday, Mayor Bloomberg toured numerous churches in three boroughs to tout the congestion pricing and other components of PlaNYC. In Brooklyn, Bloomberg spoke of his proposal to build a recycling center at Pier 52 on the Gansevoort Peninsula, saying the move would be “environmental justice” for the city’s poorer neighborhoods, where traffic and garbage trucks pollute the air. This offended the Bronx’s Rev. Ruben Diaz, who did not appreciate Bloomberg’s use of ill black and Hispanic children to sell his plan. The mayor went on to explain that the facility is key to the Solid Waste Management Plan for each borough to be responsible for handling its own refuse. Currently, the waste that would go to Pier 52 is trucked to facilities in the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey. But proceeding with the $100 million model green building requires an amendment to the Hudson River Park Act, under which the old garbage incinerator that currently resides on the pier will make way for six acres of parkland. Those elected officials from the West Side and park advocates who oppose the plan suggest moving the proposed recycling facility from Gansevoort, along with another commercial waste station on Pier 99, to Pier 76, behind the Javits Center—at the expense of $438 million. It’s so hard to anticipate the reduced carbon footprint that would result from saving 30,000 miles in truck trips each year when faced with the choice to lounge under an increasingly harmful sun. 

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