Sanchez questions Anderson on rock salt alternatives and waste-to-energy technologies

And a complete left field before I turn it over to some of my colleagues.

The department uses a significant amount of rock.

salts and brine to de-ice the streets.

Has the department explored other alternatives to rock salts and brine like CMA?

And has the department researched other technologies in addition to anaerobic digestion or waste to energy that it can produce?

That could improve the extraction of valuable materials from the city's waste streams?

Absolutely.

So we'll start with the salt question.

And the short answer is yes, we have explored alternatives to rock salt last year, which was the heaviest winter we've had in quite some time.

We used about 505,000 tons.

Of salt, which is a significant amount.

I will say, you know, there are, there is a conversation in the, in the sort of roadway maintenance and public works industry around the use of rock salt for, you know,

fighting snow and it's a much more pressing conversation in places like

you know near the Great Lakes near the Delaware River and other freshwater receiving waters particularly freshwater receiving waters that are sensitive environments or that are drinking water sources here in New York City we have

you know just a handful of freshwater

streams and creeks and the majority of our sewer system discharges into salt water.

So there isn't that same urgency around the

the impact of salt pollution on freshwater receiving waters.

But we do understand that there are implications for our infrastructure, particularly our transportation and energy infrastructure, and the corrosive impacts that road salt can have.

When we've looked at alternatives, I think the challenge comes down to two things.

One is effectiveness, the other is cost.

We've looked at some alternatives like the alternative brines and the beet sugar-based products that have been tested in the Midwest.

They're just simply not effective.

And for things like the calcium magnesium acetate, they can be effective, but being able to procure at the volume that we need, one, there isn't manufacturing capacity for those kinds of products at the volume that we would need.

And two, they are tremendously expensive, upwards of.

10 to 20 times more expensive per ton than road salt.

And, you know, I think that would be potentially prohibitive.

Oh, and sorry, other half of your question, anaerobic digestion.

Can you just restate the second half?

Sure.

Has the department researched other technologies in addition to anaerobic digestion or waste to energy that could improve the extraction of valuable materials from the city's waste streams?

Yeah, so we certainly have.

And I think, you know, there's a whole dialogue in the industry right now around technologies to extract value from the waste stream.

Some of these technologies have unfortunately been treated like the boogeyman.

There are things like paralysis, which I think is a...

You know, maybe 10 years ago, was a relatively unproven technology at scale, but I think has really proven out its usefulness in certain contexts.

It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but for certain products that are difficult or nearly impossible to recycle through other means, it can be an effective solution to divert material from landfill.

And I think we need to do a much more rigorous sort of analysis of those kinds of technologies, you know, in a fair and scientific way instead of the much more emotional way that we've approached those technologies in the past.

Thank you.