The NIMBY Syndrome

I HAVE spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to convince people that New Jersey is a nice place. I answer "New Jersey!"--not "New York!"--when people ask me where I'm from. I call the Giants the New Jersey Giants, expound upon the undisturbed beauty of the Pine Barrens, and even pretend to like Bruce Springsteen on occasion.

But I've begun to have a crisis of confidence in the Garden State. One day last August, I took a road trip down to Sandy Hook with a couple friends. Frankly, I was shocked.

Right in front of my eyes was a huge glob of illegally dumped waste. The foamy brown scum floated slowly into shore. As it enveloped the shore break, the water would streak brown in the air, crash down in a spray of yellowish-white, and then disappear into the sand. Wave after wave of scum vanished in this fashion, while little children splashed in the waves. New Jerseyites were literally swimming in their own feces.

NEW JERSEY'S garbage crisis reached crisis proportions this summer. Five times this summer, beaches had to be closed after garbage and ugly bacteria washed ashore. Governor Kean has declared a mandatory recycling plan. Most of the garbage landfills in the state are full and have closed. The remaining ones are reaching their capacity and have limited the types and quantity of garbage they'll take. Municipalities now are faced with the messy task of trying to redefine "trash" as opposed to "garbage" as opposed to "recyclable materials" under the new waste ordinances. Suburbia is in an uproar.

As usual when a major crisis hits, trumpets blazed as politicians and community leaders jumped into action. But while half the trumpets were sounding reveille, the other half sounded retreat.

Everybody knows about that New York garbage barge which took off last spring for the Carribean in search of a small nation willing to trade bananas for several metric tons of hospital waste. But that's nothing compared with New Jersey's efforts to give away its garbage. City managers have sent trucks rolling into rural Pennsylvania in search of an appropriate rock formation on which to deposit their load. Pennsylvanians, to their credit, have been pretty adamant about not taking the refuse. A dozen roses, yes, but they refuse to accept 750 tons of Twinkie wrappers and ex-TV dinners.

Luckily, some folks have come up with other solutions. After 10 or more years in which New Jersey refused to enact a bottle bill, Governor Kean finally declared the mandatory recycling program. Unfortunately, the plan has met organized resistance in suburbia. Suburbanites are protesting having to lug their bottles all the way to the recycling center--Ohmigod!--and refuse to recycle until they get doorstep pickup.

PLANS FOR new incinerating plants have met similar stumbling blocks. Incinerators with high emissions standards are the best solution to the problem. But all of the proposed plants have been stalled or scrapped. All incinerators cost money, and ones that insure proper pollution control cost lots of money.

State politicians are unwilling to raise taxes to fund the incinerators, and environmental groups are blocking any state plans that skimp on pollution control. But even when a satisfactory plan is agreed upon, suburbanites get up in arms and the NIMBY Syndrome strikes. "Incinerators, yes, but Not In My Back Yard!!"

But while petty short-sightedness dampened or destroyed all the good ideas, somebody came up with a really good idea. "Hey, let's dump it in the ocean! Yeah, that's it!" Under cover of night, garbage barges loaded with tons of trash began to sneak a couple of miles out to sea and drop their loads right into the ocean. It's like a colossal toilet. Except it doesn't flush. Some of it sinks down to the bottom--where only fish are, anyway--but a whole lot of it doesn't. It just floats around on top of the water and gets sloshed around in the waves until it washes up on the beach.

The garbage crisis is not isolated in New Jersey. While it hit New Jersey first, the entire eastern seaboard is at risk, including Boston.

Boston faces an even tighter garbage situation than New Jersey in the near future, according to officials at the Department of Hazardous and Solid Waste. The city exports all of its waste to landfills in eastern Massachusetts. Beacon Hill sends its trash to New Hampshire. Ten years ago, 400 landfills took garbage in Massachusetts. Since municipalities can veto new landfills, only one has opened in recent years. Today, only 190 landfills are in operation in the state and waste officials estimate that by 1990, three-quarters of these will close.

AND YET, just two weeks ago, William Bolger, the President of the Massachusetts Senate, blocked a new incinerator that was planned for the South Cove Area of Boston. Mayor Flynn pushed the Boston incinerator as a way for Boston to take responsibility for its waste problem.

But South End residents, who live adjacent to the South Cove, protested. Sen. Bolger, who will represent the South End after redistricting, single-handedly killed the incinerator. Bolger then recommended that it be placed in Weston. Many people think this is a bad joke, since Weston, one of the richest towns in the state, rejected a similar incinerator back in the late 1970s.

So the game goes on. People refuse to deal with the problem and the garbage keeps piling up. When is it going to stop? Before or after Boston, too, drowns in its own trash?