Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station

When New York City's Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan mandated the end of municipal solid waste trucked through urban neighborhoods to open collection sites, the New York City Department of Sanitation commissioned the design and construction of five new Marine Transfer Stations (MTS) for containerizing and transporting municipal solid waste by waterborne barges. The $180 million Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station project showcases New York City’s MTS concept that demonstrates a unique approach for safely processing municipal solid waste within a completely enclosed facility capable of sustained 24/7/365 operations. 

The 85,000 sq. ft. multilevel MTS facility is built to robust industrial-grade specifications for operations in an all-weather marine environment, and designed for maximum operational efficiency and safety. An innovative three-level processing system efficiently containerizes municipal solid waste for marine transfer within an enclosed, sealed, and odor-controlled industrial-grade facility. To enable safe and efficient operations, the MTS facility was designed with three levels: a top-floor tipping level for truck unloading, a loading level for compressing and loading solid waste through open floor slots, the solid waste dropping into 20’x 8’ open-top intermodal shipping containers located on the bottom-floor pier level. Each loaded and sealed shipping container holds approximately 25 tons of compressed solid waste, with each barge loaded to a capacity of 48 containers. The MTS facility is capable of loading up to three barges per day at a rate of one barge per eight-hour shift, for a total of 3,600 tons of solid waste processed per day. 

Achieving all design and construction goals, the Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station project demonstrates how collaborative planning, innovative design, and close interagency coordination enabled New York City’s Marine Transfer Stations to be the first solid waste processing facilities of their kind in the world — and the first solid waste infrastructure designed to support advanced recycling technologies vital to New York City achieving its ultimate goal of “zero waste” sustainability. 

Project Highlights: 

• Honored with 2017 Municipal Engineers of the City of New York Project of the Year Award 
• Conceptual, Preliminary and Final Design 
• First of its kind solid waste processing facility 
• Designed for industrial-grade specifications for operations in an all-weather marine environment