Mobro 4000
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The Mobro 4000 was a barge made infamous in 1987 for hauling the same load of trash along the east coast of North America from New York to Belize and back until a way was found to dispose of the garbage.
Chartered by entrepreneur Lowell Harrelson and Long Island mob boss Salvatore Avellino, it set sail on March 22 from Islip, New York, escorted by the tugboat Break of Dawn and carrying 3,168 tons of trash headed for a pilot program in Morehead City, North Carolina, to be turned into methane. The barge was docked at Morehead City, until a WRAL-TV news crew, acting on a tip, flew by helicopter to the coast to investigate. Action News 5 Reporter Susan Brozek broke the story on the 6 p.m. news on April 1, 1987, and North Carolina officials began their own investigation, which resulted in an order for the Mobro to move on.
The barge then proceeded along the coast looking for another place to offload and continuing to meet stiff resistance. The Mexican Navy denied it entrance to their waters. It made it as far south as Belize, again being rejected, before returning to New York. Upon arrival it was met with a temporary restraining order and a heated legal battle preventing it from docking. In October, the trash was finally incinerated in Brooklyn and the resulting ash was buried where it originated, in Islip.
[edit] Legacy
At the time, the Mobro 4000 incident was widely cited by environmentalists and the media as emblematic of the solid-waste disposal crisis in the United States due to a shortage of landfill space: almost 3,000 municipal landfills had closed between 1982 and 1987. [1] It triggered much national public discussion about waste disposal, and may have been a factor in increased recycling rates in the late 1980s and after. It was this that caused it to be included in an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (series 2 episode 5) in which they debunk many recycling myths.
Critics of recycling such as John Tierney have argued that there never was any real U.S. landfill crisis because the amount of waste being landfilled takes up little space relative to the size of the country. In a 1996 article in The New York Times Magazine, Tierney stated,
A. Clark Wiseman, an economist at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has calculated that if Americans keep generating garbage at current rates for 1,000 years, and if all their garbage is put in a landfill 100 yards (91 m) deep, by the year 3000 this national garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles (56 km) on each side. This doesn't seem a huge imposition in a country the size of America. The garbage would occupy only 5 percent of the area needed for the national array of solar panels proposed by environmentalists. The millennial landfill would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the range land now available for grazing in the continental United States. And if it still pains you to think of depriving posterity of that 35-mile (56 km) square, remember that the loss will be only temporary. Eventually, like previous landfills, the mounds of trash will be covered with grass and become a minuscule addition to the nation's 150,000 square miles (390,000 km2) of parkland." [2]
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Mobro 4000 incident was caused by a combination of poor decision making by local Islip public officials and short-term difficulties triggered by changing environmental regulations.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- Brower, Michael, and Warren Leon. 1999. The consumer's guide to effective environmental choices: practical advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80281-X.
- Katz, Jane. 2002. What a waste Regional Review 1. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
