5-Month Odyssey Ends at Incinerator : Brooklyn Is Last Port of Garbage Barge

NEW YORK — The garbage barge that became a laughingstock for its 6,000-mile voyage in search of a dumping ground finally docked Monday in Brooklyn, where its notorious cargo will be unloaded and incinerated.

“That’s one small barge for New York City, one giant bale of garbage for mankind,” pronounced the city’s sanitation commissioner, Brendan Sexton, as the barge arrived at the Sanitation Department’s Southwest Brooklyn Incinerator.

Although the barge’s wanderings won international attention, the docking drew no protesters or even sightseers. It was met by Sexton, officials from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and reporters, who studied the neat, 18-foot stacks of garbage aboard.

The bales will be unloaded late this week in an operation that will take about one week, Sexton said.

The 3,186 tons of nontoxic paper and commercial trash will be examined for infectious materials, recycled and incinerated. The 400 tons of ash residue will be moved by private haulers to a landfill in Islip, on Long Island.

The barge began its journey from a private dock in Queens on March 22, after its load, collected from commercial clients in Islip, New York City and Nassau County, was turned away from the Islip landfill for lack of space.

Lowell Harrelson of Bay Minette, Ala., had planned to use the refuse at his methane gas operation in North Carolina, and had hoped to demonstrate that it was cheaper to move garbage by water than over land.

Without proper permits, however, the barge was turned away by North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Belize and the Bahamas.

The 230-foot-long barge returned May 16 to New York, and remained in the harbor as environmental groups protested its return, arguing that it contained infectious wastes from hospitals.

Federal, state and local inspectors later found that the trash was nontoxic and free of infectious materials.