[GreenYes] Fw: NGOs Issue Press Release on NYC's plan to export garbage

["Bill Sheehan" <zerowaste@grrn.org>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: ann leonard 
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 4:24 PM
Subject: [Gaia-members] NGOs Issue Press Release on NYC's 
plan to export garbage

Last week the Mayor of New York City BOTH cut parts of the 
recycling program AND announced that they are considering 
exporting their trash to a Caribbean Island! How stupid is that?!? 
Below is a press release issued today by environmental groups in 
the U.S. and the Caribbean denouncing the export option. I'll also 
forward a couple of the articles from recent NYC press. We will 
keep you posted in our efforts to stop this ridiculous plan.

Cheers,
Annie and Monica
GAIA

NYC Environmental Justice Alliance * Alliance for Sustainable 
Management of our Residues * COHPEDA * GAIA * BAN * 
EarthRights International 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Groups Vow to Block Export of NYC Garbage to Caribbean, 
Demand Real Solutions

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

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.)

        ###


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