Following last month's announcement that New York City’s Department of Sanitation was accepting bids for a 20-year contract to recycle the city's glass, metal and plastic waste, Hugo Neu, the company that currently holds a similar five-year contract with the city, has proposed building a high-tech facility in Hunts Point if it wins the new deal.
The long-term contract is similar to one the city made with Visy Paper in 1995 to recycle the city's recovered fiber through 2015. The guaranteed supply of paper prompted Visy to announce recently a plan to expand its Staten Island processing facility to employ another 75 to 100 workers.
Hugo Neu Schnitzer East wants to build a multimillion-dollar facility in Hunts Point to handle the comprehensive recycling operation if it wins the bid. But the South Bronx neighborhood is already host to a sewage treatment plant, a smelly fertilizer factory, nine separate waste-transfer stations and the nation's largest wholesale produce market, which puts hundreds of trucks on neighborhood streets every day.
Nonetheless, there is cautious support for Hugo Neu's plan among community groups and environmental activists.
"If they do it right," said Kate Van Tassel, program associate for Sustainable South Bronx, "it can be a good thing for the neighborhood."
Van Tassel pointed to commitments the firm has made to service the proposed facility by barge rather than with trucks and to provide a public waterfront greenway nearby.
Hugo Neu -- which was honored last May by the New York League of Conservation Voters -- predicts the new facility would bring more than 40 union jobs to the neighborhood.
In addition, said Van Tassel, the local abundance of recycled materials could draw end-user industries to the neighborhood, providing even more local jobs. Combined with the boost to barge traffic around Hunts Point -- long a crusade of those hoping to shift cargo from the roads back to the waterfront -- the proposed facility has the potential to transform the entire neighborhood for the better.
In an effort to secure the 20-year contract, Hugo Neu recently improved its bid by $19 per ton -- asking the city to pay only $51 to process each ton of recyclables rather than the initial bid of $70. The city currently pays more than twice that to dispose of recyclables in the regular waste stream.
According to the Sanitation Department, the city produces 400 tons of recyclable metal and plastic each day, and the quantity of total recyclables is expected to rise to nearly 1,000 tons a day when glass returns to the recycling stream in April 2004. New York Daily News