With the opening of a redesigned transfer station that Waste Management operates in Brooklyn, New York City now can transport an average of 950 tons of waste six days a week, thereby eliminating about 13,000 long-haul tractor-trailer truck trips yearly, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. 

New York & Atlantic Railway will move the sealed containers of waste to the Fresh Pond Yard near the Brooklyn-Queens border, where CSX Transportation will carry it to disposal sites. 

This is the latest step toward fulfilling goals set in the Solid Waste Management Plan, which the City Council and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation approved in 2006.  When fully implemented, the plan will eliminate nearly six million miles of truck trips annually in New York City and ensure that each borough can handle its own waste and recyclables.

Under the direction of Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler, in coordination with a working group comprised of representatives from six city agencies, the plan has been rolled out in stages. The borough of Staten Island was first, and now uses the reactivated Staten Island Railroad to export 750 tons of household waste daily.  Rail also transports all of the 2,100 tons of municipal and household waste generated each day in the Bronx.

Four marine transfer stations also are in the works. By year end, construction is scheduled to start on one in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park and the Queens neighborhood of College Point.  As the result of special legislation, which Gov. David Paterson signed into law last year, all of Manhattan's recyclables will be shipped by barge once a marine transfer in the borough is reactivated.