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While it may not receive the same coverage as the problems with the District’s schools, the collection of garbage is nevertheless a common grievance among District residents. Residents complain about dirty streets and infrequent trash collection, and newspaper articles last year reported that only 2 of the city’s 34 street-sweeping machines and 30 of its 40 regular trash collection trucks still functioned. Curbside recycling has been suspended for over a year, and problems with rats plague sections of the city.

With all these problems, it might come as a surprise to many readers to learn that the District of Columbia actually imports garbage. In fact, the city receives as much trash from neighboring suburbs as it produces itself. The nation’s capital is serving as a dumping ground for over 3 million suburbanites.

How has such a situation arisen? At the root of the problem are the city’s poorly sited and virtually unregulated trash transfer stations. Trash transfer stations are permanent structures that serve as a link in the garbage collection and disposal chain. Garbage trucks collect trash in the city and suburbs and dump it at transfer stations, where it is picked up by tractor-trailers and hauled to landfills in rural Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Six trash transfer stations currently operate in the District, four of which are privately owned and two city-owned. The private stations are all located in Ward 5. It is estimated that 50% of the waste handled at these private facilities comes from outside the city.

While there are arguments that transfer stations are a necessary part of a waste management system, the negative impact of these stations on residential District communities is severe. Neighbors of trash transfer stations must endure problems with foul odors, dust, rats, cockroaches, diesel fuel emissions and noise. The stations harbor disease and contribute to respiratory problems such as asthma. Residents who live near the stations speak of invasions into their homes by families of rats and raccoons, children who must be kept home from school on days when the fumes are too powerful and elderly residents who cannot use their backyards and become prisoners in their own homes.

As well as the social costs, the economic impacts of the transfer stations on the city are severe. A February report released by the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) reports that during the course of one day, roughly 200 collection trucks and 40 transfer semitrailers travel to and from each facility. The vibrations coming from the trucks harm the foundations and ceilings of houses, tear up city roads and rupture gas and water lines below the road bed, requiring costly and inconvenient repairs. Local businesses also suffer. ILSR reports that “hearings on tax assessments of some businesses located near one transfer station revealed that property tax assessments in the area declined by 30% as a result of the public nuisance caused by transfer stations.”

In the District, the dearth of regulations governing the siting and operation of trash transfer stations has caused taxpaying residents and businesses to suffer unnecessary filth and disease while large garbage companies profit from running the transfer stations. The city has no permanent regulations governing the operations of these facilities. Although the 1995 Solid Waste Facility Permit Temporary Act directed the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the D.C. Zoning Commission to draw up regulations and siting requirements for transfer stations, no clear regulations have yet been written. Most of the transfer stations operate with only an interim operating permit and without a valid certificate of occupancy. The D.C. government has not even enforced existing general public nuisance laws against transfer stations.

By contrast, citizen and government action in the suburbs has ensured stringent measures governing transfer stations in those areas. Prince George’s County, for example, mandates a 500 foot buffer zone between transfer stations and other residential and commercial areas.

Faced with much stricter regulations in neighboring suburban jurisdictions, private companies are encouraged to locate in the District where they can operate in a virtual regulatory vacuum. Differences in the stringency of regulations are being used by waste-haulers across the East Coast, as they pit jurisdictions against each other, promising them jobs and taxes in return for cheap landfill space and collection facilities.

Rev. Morris Shearin, Pastor of the Israel Baptist Church, which sits a block away from a transfer station, recently told reporters that his community was informed that the city had permitted a recycling facility to be built in their neighborhood—a facility which would handle glass, paper and plastic products. Instead they got a trash transfer station operated by Browning Ferris, Industries. “This is not a facility needed by people living within 200 feet of it,” he states. “Trash is coming from as far away as Potomac Mills, VA and King Charles County, MD and (District residents) must live with this in their backyard.”

Community leader Ruth Wilson, another neighbor of the BFI facility, comments that her house “shakes off the terrace” because of all the garbage trucks rolling by. “Our neighborhood is overrun by a foul odor and is constantly plagued by rodents.”

Earlier this year, council member Howard Thomas, chair of the Department of Public Works, introduced legislation to govern trash transfer stations. The bill passed the city council and would have required a 500-foot buffer zone between the facilities and neighboring properties. Thomas then canceled a May public hearing on the issue, however, and has taken no further action. He commented to The Washington Post that the bill would have hurt a business friend of his who hopes to build a new trash transfer station in the city.

The problems with trash transfer stations are increasingly insupportable for those who live nearby, and community groups across the city have mobilized and called for their closure. “Until [trash transfer stations] comply with business, health and safety regulations, we are not going to go away,” commented Rev. Shearin at a recent press conference.
While stricter regulations governing trash transfer stations are necessary, environmentalists call for additional action. Larry Bohlen of Friends of the Earth notes that a renewed commitment to recycling and source reduction is a crucial component of a comprehensive solid waste management plan for the city. Recycling would dramatically reduce the city’s need for trash transfer stations.

Waste management in Montgomery County has proven that recycling saves money as well as natural resources. Last year the county cut back garbage collection from twice a week to once a week, reducing collection costs and traffic through neighborhoods. In a Washington Post article, officials noted that with increasing amounts of glass, cans and newspapers diverted from landfills, waste from single-family houses has been cut by 45 %. The reduced collection service lowers costs for homeowners as well as the county. Perhaps the city should take a lesson from its suburban neighbors, rather than taking their trash.

Sarah Newport is with Friends of the Earth. For more information, contact Friends of the Earth (202) 783-7400, ext. 219.

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