DSNY brought over 2,000 barges, each containing 600 tons of material, to Fresh Kills.
Explore the videos below to learn more about the equipment used in the recovery operations in Manhattan and at Fresh Kills.
Cleaning and Collection
Collection trucks and mechanical brooms, the backbone of DSNY’s fleet, were used to remove refuse and clean the streets. Flushers were used for dust suppression, at Ground Zero and throughout Manhattan.
Front-end loaders were used heavily both in the Manhattan clean-up effort as well as in the Fresh Kills recovery operation, primarily to scoop material into dump trucks.
Debris Removal
Dump trucks were the primary method of moving material, both away from Ground Zero and from the barges to the top of the Hill at Fresh Kills. Front-end loaders and excavators - with attachments such as buckets and grapples - were used to load material into the dump trucks.
Marine transfer
Barges were loaded either by crane, for bulk metal, or by emptying trucks from the marine transfer station tipping floor. The barges then transported the material to Fresh Kills, where they were unloaded by other cranes to be transported to the top of the Hill for sorting and forensics.
In the days that followed 9/11, DSNY was quickly able to leverage its existing infrastructure, activating its barge fleet and designating the 59th Street and Hamilton Avenue marine transfer stations (MTSs) to move material to Fresh Kills. Additional temporary MTSs, operated by Weeks Marine, were set up at Pier 25 on the Hudson River and Pier 6 on the East River.
by the numbers.
DSNY workers at each Marine Transfer Station were responsible for handling thousands of tons during recovery. At 59th Street, they transferred 4,515 loads (which equated to 38,160 tons in 62 barges) and at Hamilton Avenue they transferred 17,879 loads (which equated to 263,993 tons in 447 barges).
Screening.
At the top of the Hill at Fresh Kills, the NYPD and FBI were responsible for screening the material for evidence. While sifting through the material was initially done by hand, a variety of machinery typically used in recycling facilities were brought in to make the process more efficient and exact.