Environmental
Organizations Respond to NYC Ending Recycling
Vow to Block Export
of NYC Garbage to Caribbean, Demand Real Solutions
Press Release
1jul02
New York/ San Juan/Port-au-Prince, July 1, 2002 -- An international coalition
of environmental groups announced today that they would make every effort to
block the export of New York City trash to the Caribbean, a proposal suggested
by Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty last week. The New York Times quoted Mr.
Doherty as saying "could we find an island and do something?"
Timothy Logan, Solid Waste Coordinator for New York City's Environmental
Justice Alliance said "Environmental Justice activists throughout NYC will
stand firmly with our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean to oppose
environmentally inequitable and unsustainable practices. We continue to pressure
our own elected officials to embrace waste prevention, composting and recycling
as the answer to reducing the impacts of our waste".
Organizations around the United States and the Caribbean began mobilizing
against the project as soon as the announcement was made.
"The countries of the Caribbean will not take kindly to garbage
imperialism from the Big Apple," said Aldrin Calixte with COHPEDA in Haiti.
COHPEDA waged a successful decade-long campaign to demand the removal of
Philadelphia's incinerator ash dumped on a Haitian beach in the late 1980s.
Ironically, that infamous ash is finally being returned to Pennsylvania this
week after 15 years, at the same time that NYC announces its regressive idea to
dump its trash on Caribbean Islands. According to Calixte, "We must join
forces against this plan to prevent the giants of this planet who continue to
undermine the environmental space of others."
¸In the case of Puerto Rico the proposal is another insult to an open
injury,” said Juan Rosario, coordinator of the Alliance for the Sustainable
Management of our Residues in Puerto Rico. "During the last sixty years USA
government have bombed Vieques, destroying a beautiful municipal island and
harming its citizens; have use our people as guinea pigs testing agent orange,
malathion, thalidomide; have made experiment with gamma rays in our pristine
rainforest and conducted a sterilization campaign on our sisters without their
consent, among many abominable things. Now, showing that human stupidity and
greed has no limits they are proposing to send us their garbage. We will not
tolerate it, we won˙t become the dumpsite of NYC and will do anything it takes
to stop it”
The groups, including the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, GAIA, BAN, and
Earthrights International in the U.S. and Alliance for the Sustainable
Management of our Residues, and COHPEDA in the Caribbean, said they would resort
to blocking shipments with civil disobedience if necessary.
"Sending waste abroad will come back to haunt anyone who tries it,"
said Kenny Bruno, Campaigns Coordinator for EarthRights International.
"Hearing the idea to export waste at the same time that New York is
actually cutting its recycling program is like going back in time," said
GAIA campaigner Monica Wilson. GAIA is an international coalition with members
in 55 countries working to promote responsible and just waste management
systems. "In the 1980's other U.S. municipalities considered this option
but rejected it as short-sighed and unjust. Instead they adopted serious waste
reduction and recycling programs and are now diverting the majority of their
municipal discards back into the useful economy. When is New York going to join
the 21st Century and embrace real solutions?"
¸Is the memory of New York so short that they don˙t recall the Islip
Garbage Barge that in 1987 plied the waters of the Caribbean and Eastern
seaboard for months looking for a community willing to be dumped on?,” said
Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network (BAN), a global watchdog network that
works to halt international dumping of wastes. ¸At that time Greenpeace placed
a large banner on the barge which stated: ¬Next Time, Try Recycling˙.
Apparently New York remains deaf to this clear and compelling message.”
Photos Available: Photo of the famous 1987 Islip Barge, also
known as the ¸ NYC Garbage Barge” from Greenpeace (1-202-462-1177) Photos
of Philadelphia˙s waste dumped in Haiti available from Greenpeace and from
COHPEDA (contact information above.)
Contact: Timothy Logan, New York City Environmental Justice
Alliance, 1-212-239-8882, own@nyceja.org Juan Rosario, Alliance for the
Sustainable Management of our Residues, Puerto Rico, 1-787-462-5088,
amaneser2001@hotmail.com Aldrin Calixte, COHPEDA, Haiti, (509) 245-2080,
245-7041, 245-7042, cell: (509) 510-8407, email cohpeda@haitelonline.com
Monica Wilson, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA),
California, 1- 510-524-4000, ext 104, mwilson@essential.org, www.no-burn.org
Jim Puckett, Basel Action Network (BAN), 1-206-652-5555, apex@seanet.com,
www.ban.org
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