The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, which has made cleaner air a priority, has taken steps to modernize the city’s fleet of diesel-powered vehicles — including about 2,000 trucks used for picking up residential waste and recyclables — with newer, less-polluting models. Under a law the mayor signed in September, by 2017 at least 90 percent of these vehicles must meet the tougher emission control standards for diesel trucks that the federal Environmental Protection Agency set in 2007.
But those trucks are not the only ones on the streets. Now the administration wants to impose similar requirements on private haulers who dispose of the city’s commercial garbage and recyclables, as well as construction and demolition debris.
A new proposal would require about 8,300 private collection trucks to meet the same federal emissions standards by 2020, three years after the deadline for the municipal fleet. The proposal, which requires the approval of the City Council, is part of a larger package of revisions to the city’s air pollution control code.
Council officials said on Monday that they were reviewing the plan.
A report released last month by the New York City Business Integrity Commission, which oversees the private haulers, and the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group, projects that if no action is taken, the private trucks will emit a total of 1,368 tons of particulate matter and 23,198 tons of nitrogen oxides between 2013 and 2030. These substances, found in diesel exhaust, have been linked to respiratory and cardiovascular problems, smog and global warming.
The report projects that if private haulers retire their older trucks by 2020, particulate matter emissions would be reduced by 796 tons during that time period; it would be the equivalent of removing 341,829 cars from city roads every year between 2014 and 2030, the report said. Nitrogen oxides would also be reduced by 12,054 tons, or the equivalent of removing 862,704 new cars or 143,784 old cars from the roads every year.
Under the proposal, a refuse collection company would be given several options, including retrofitting older trucks with new engines that meet the 2007 federal emission standards, or replacing them entirely with new vehicles that do. Shari C. Hyman, the commissioner of the Business Integrity Commission, called the proposed mandate “a balanced approach that will help achieve the air quality goals of the administration without unfairly burdening private industry.”
The report, which was written by M. J. Bradley & Associates using city data, estimated that the overall cost of the proposal to the private haulers would be $484 million, on top of the $571.4 million they would be paying to replace trucks through normal turnover. However, commission officials said this figure could be significantly lower if trucks were retrofitted instead of replaced. The report also noted that with more new trucks and fewer old ones, savings on repairs and maintenance could be as much as $15.5 million.
Several companies’ representatives said they supported the proposal. “With or without legislation, we support cleaner emissions for our industry and, frankly, every industry,” said Ron Bergamini, chief executive officer of Action Environmental Group, the parent company of Action Carting, one of the city’s largest haulers with 80 trucks on city roads every day. He said he expected that half of those trucks would have to be replaced or retrofitted by 2020 — at a cost of about $270,000 for each new truck, and $25,000 to $35,000 for each retrofit.
But others said that while they supported the concept of reducing emissions, they remained concerned about the proposed legislation.
“Companies that collect waste and recyclables in New York City typically operate on very narrow margins and are limited as to their ability to raise prices,” said David Biderman, general counsel for the National Solid Waste Management Association, a trade group that represents more than 750 waste and recycling companies nationally, including 75 in the New York region. “This proposed legislation as well as other legislative proposals pending before the City Council are likely to increase carters’ costs significantly over the next few years if they are enacted.”
Patrick Hyland, executive director of the New York Metropolitan Trucking Association, an industry group for more than 50 heavy construction truck companies, said that he had initially resisted the proposal but that the commission’s willingness to adopt a 2020 deadline after considering an earlier date had made it “more palatable” to his members, who typically spend $160,000 to $190,000 on each new truck.
“I voiced my concerns about hitting them with something like this while some of them were still digging themselves out of the economic downturn, coupled with Hurricane Sandy,” Mr. Hyland said. “They need to prepare themselves financially.”
Jim Tripp, senior counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said he saw the proposal for private haulers as an “innovative” step in the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to improve air quality, which have included banning smoking in public places and phasing out the use of certain kinds of home heating oils. “I think it will have a citywide benefit since we all have garbage picked up and these trucks are everywhere,” he said.