September 5, 1991

New York City will have to build as many as three new garbage incinerators, in part because it will not be able to recycle as much trash as state goals call for, the Dinkins administration has concluded. The new incinerators could cost at least $1 billion and will most likely prompt fierce opposition from environmental and community groups. In his 1989 mayoral campaign, David N. Dinkins had held out hope that the city would be able to address its trash disposal needs without resorting to new incinerators. But in a plan to be disclosed today, Dinkins administration officials acknowledge that in addition to expanding three existing plants, two to three additional new incinerators will be needed. Burning Plus Recycling The administration also said that the city would have to burn 68 percent of its trash, slightly less than what was contemplated by the Koch administration. The city collects 14,500 tons of waste a day. "Even with very aggressive recycling, we still need to burn 10,000 tons," Steven M. Polan, the city's Sanitation Commissioner, said in an interview yesterday. Many environmental and community groups have vehemently opposed building new incinerators because of concern over worsening air quality and neighborhood disruption by truck traffic. Incinerators emit several kinds of contaminants including soot particles containing lead, acid gases and dioxin, considered to be health risks. The city will be able to recycle 25 percent of its trash by the year 2000, the same level required by city law but less than a state goal of as much as 42 percent by 1997, Mr. Polan said. But any more than 25 percent cannot be economically justified because recycling markets will not be sufficiently developed to absorb all the material that New Yorkers could separate for recycling, he said. Opponents of incinerators are very likely to take issue with the Sanitation Department analysis that only 25 percent recycling is economically feasible. But city officials say that just to reach the 25 percent level will require adding to the six materials many New Yorkers currently separate for recycling pickup. About 6 percent of the trash collected by the Sanitation Department is now being separated under the city's struggling two-and-a-half-year-old recycling program. Mr. Polan is to present highlights of the administration's plan at a state legislative hearing on solid waste today at 11 A.M. at 270 Broadway in New York City. A city solid waste management plan required by state law -- already five months late -- is expected to be completed and released for public comment by Nov. 1, Mr. Polan said. In the interview yesterday, Mr. Polan offered only an outline of the plan, and it was unclear when the new incinerators would be built. After hearings in November and December, the plan will be modified and submitted to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The city cannot build trash processing or disposal plants until the plan receives state approval. Many officials, including Mr. Dinkins's First Deputy Mayor, Norman Steisel, maintain that recycling has limits and that with landfill capacity running out, the city has no alternative except to burn a substantial amount of its trash. Incineration proponents say modern plants are safe if properly maintained. Dinkins' 1989 Promise In 1989, Mr. Dinkins promised to delay a decision until 1993 about building more incinerators, pending a review of the city's trash disposal needs. "We're not going to have giant, mass-burn incinerators in every borough belching poison into the air," he said, after receiving the endorsement of the New York League of Conservation Voters. The next February, Mr. Dinkins said at a conference on the environment: "You all know that I have some very serious concerns about the consequences of proceeding with resource-recovery plants, especially with regard to the toxic ash produced by that technology. Unless my concerns are adequately answered, we will not proceed with incineration." Resource-recovery plants are incinerators that convert garbage-generated steam into electric power. Under one Koch administration plan, new incinerators would have been built in each borough. Mr. Polan said the Dinkins plan would require building two or three new incinerators and the expansion of three existing units, which is under way. Construction of an incinerator at the old Brooklyn Navy Yard remains a possibility, a department spokeswoman, Anne Canty, said. The Sanitation Department's study found that incineration is the cheapest way to dispose of trash, Mr. Polan said, but an approach limited to burning would be at odds with the state's environmental priorities and increasing national emphasis on more recycling. He reiterated that the city's current recycling program is struggling and needs an overhaul badly. Such an overhaul would require big revisions in the city's mandatory recycling law, which contemplated 25 percent recycling by spring 1994. Sounding an old theme, Mr. Polan said achieving 25 percent recycling at an affordable cost will require changes in sanitation union work rules. The department needs more flexibility to move workers from collection to recycling routes, he said. Bargaining between management and the union has gone nowhere on the issue.

After months in which American military spending seemed unassailable, the decline of the Soviet monolith may prompt the Bush Administration to take a closer look. Some experts question whether new generations of weapons or strategic defense systems can now be justified. Article, page A12.

European governments are stepping up efforts to rescue the Continent's beleaguered electronics industry. They fear that further deterioration could leave Europe hopelessly behind Japan and the United States, not only in electronics but also in automobiles, aerospace and the many other industries that depend on electronic components. In sharp contrast to Washington's hands-off approach to the United States' electronics industry, the European Community and several national governments are spending billions of dollars to buttress the Continent's computer and semiconductor manufacturers.

EVEN the decorating world is acknowledging the recession, in an oblique way. Signs of tight finances, if no lack of fantasy, can be detected at Show house 91 in Smithtown, L.I., a benefit for Family Service League of Suffolk County that opens Monday. Gold-plated faucets, faux fur upholstery and other 80's extravagances are absent. In their place are vintage sports equipment, bird cages and other relatively inexpensive relics as well as sleights of hand, like a table made of suitcases and shade pulls made of Christmas balls.

PEOPLE with children have always debated leaving New York City. But previous generations saw their trek to the suburbs as a move up to a better life. Many New Yorkers who are leaving now have few illusions about suburban life. Some of them grew up in the suburbs and found the experience stultifying. The suburbs, however, represent safety.