The claw builds a wall of trash to prevent it from avalanching onto the tipping floor. In one swoop, it can pick up as much as one trash truck carries. Narrator: A giant grapple claw descends over the trash. It's about three to four days' worth of trash. Narrator: Tractors push the trash into a massive storage pit 93 feet deep and 270 feet long.Įarls: Between 8,000 and 9,000 tons are in the refuse pit. This facility processes up to a million tons of waste annually.Įarls: Once the trucks scale in and come up to the tipping floor, they dump in front of one of these bays. All of Manhattan's residential trash goes to waste-to-energy facilities like this one to be burned and turned into electricity. Narrator: Then a train takes it to one of Covanta's waste-to-energy facilities. Thornton: It is an inherently dangerous operation to move heavy equipment overhead. Three hours later, the tug and barge back up into the Global Transfer Station. Narrator: He navigates this heavy load safely along one of the busiest waterways in the world, down the East River, through New York Harbor to Staten Island. Straitz: Quite often, a barge gets filled up and we will have to wait two, three, maybe four hours before We would actually come to a dead stop on this boat and barge. Jason Harris: You can't go against the tide. Tides play a major factor in the times that we can transfer barges.Ĭpt. Straitz: What you see here is called Hell's Gate. Tug captain Jason Harris is now in charge. Narrator: A tug attaches to the loaded trash barge. Gerard Thornton: Every one of these containers represents a truckload that we've taken off of the city streets and out of the tunnels, reducing carbon emissions and reducing congestion and wear and tear on the city's infrastructure. Ken Straitz: Containers are picked up by the crane and put on the barge. The waste-to-energy company handles two marine transfer stations in the city. Narrator: Once the Department of Sanitation seals a container and slides it out to the dock, responsibility then goes to Covanta. Mattresses are used like a sponge to sop up anything left over.īrereton: When we have garbage on the floor, it will take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to load a container. Narrator: A stamper then packs in the garbage. Getting the material containerized as quickly as possible, and sealed, keeps that smell down. One FEL will clear the wall,and one FEL will load containers. Narrator: Tractors move the trash into the containers beneath the ground.īrereton: It's sort of a dance. Then, handles tilt the hopper.īrereton: Then she'll push the blade, and the blade will push the material all the way out to clear the whole truck. Narrator: Trucks pause at the weigh station to help the city keep track of how much trash New Yorkers produce. And there's radiation detectors that will read the truck. Sean Brereton: We are currently at 91st Street MTS. Narrator: Frank heads to the dump station in the Upper East Side. You don't smell garbage, you smell money. Resto: Well, you get immune to the smell. Narrator: That's Frank, a 23-year veteran sanitation worker. New York City's Department of Sanitation sends its fleet of 2,000 garbage trucks to start picking up at 5 a.m. Here's what actually happens to New York City's 3.2 million tons of trash a year. Narrator: And it all costs the city hundreds of millions. So getting trash from here to here takes thousands of workers, trucks, trains, cranes, and even barges operating nonstop to ship waste across the East Coast.įrank Resto: Rain, snow, hail, storm. Instead, it ends up as far away as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and even South Carolina. Narrator: None of New Yorkers' waste is processed in the city. Patricia Earls: Once the garbageman comes and picks it up, you don't think anymore about it. And that claw is taking it toīe burned into electricity. Narrator: This is just three days' worth of trash - most coming from New York City. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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