Sanchez asks about Rikers Island as potential transfer or compost site

Have there been any conversations about trying to open this new municipal marine transfer station at all?

There have not at this time.

I think, you know, the thing that we should be looking at as far as new infrastructure is additional composting infrastructure, as we've mentioned before.

And, you know, Rikers Island.

I was just going to ask, has Rikers Island been spoken about or thought about as a potential place for a new municipal marine transfer station?

The challenge with Rikers Island as far as being a transfer station is that there's only one road in and one road out.

And so you put a lot of trucks on that one road going to and from the island.

I think the better option for Rikers Island is to be a receiving facility for...

organic waste that's collected and transferred at marine transfer stations all across the city so that it can receive the material by water, not have the additional truck traffic, and then process it into compost that can then be used beneficially.

Is there a way that everything could happen via water if it was at Rikers Island?

Many things can happen via water.

The thing that can't happen via water is us picking up the trash at 8.5 million residents'homes.

And once the trash is in the truck, it has to go somewhere and dump.

So that's the utility of the transfer station is to then move that material by other means to its processing and disposal location.

So the challenge we always have is...

We pick up the trash in the trucks, and somehow the trash has to get out of those trucks.

And so where we do that and how, I think, is the focus of our efforts.

I think this is a worthy conversation that we should be continuing to explore.