Long Island residents produce almost five pounds of waste per person per day. That’s a whopping 14 million tons of municipal waste, on top of nearly 30 million pounds of regional construction and demolition waste … produced daily! West Babylon-based Winters Bros. Waste Systems, a seven-decade veteran of Island residential and commercial waste management with an evolving combination of disposal and recycling services, hauls lots of it. And the company, servicing nearly three-dozen Nassau and Suffolk locales, has a front-row seat to what some consider LI’s garba-calypse: the planned 2024 closure of the bursting-at-the-seams Brookhaven Landfill, a logistical nightmare for your local garbage truck crew and everyone else. Among those seeking solutions is Winters Brothers Vice President Will Flower, a 40-year waste-management veteran who’s been with the company since its growth-accelerating 2015 acquisition of Progressive Waste Solutions’ regional operations. According to Flower, Winters Brothers – which recently issued a comprehensive (and dire) State of Waste assessment – believes this regional problem requires a regional solution.
Junkyard watchdog: Innovative Flower, smelling like a rose.
Over-haul: Managing waste in the 1980s versus the 2020s is radically different. The waste stream itself has changed in terms of composition and volume. Fortunately, there is more recycling today. Today’s infrastructure for managing waste is much better and more efficient than in the past.
In progress: Over time, [Winters Brothers] has been able to grow our business from a small mom-and-pop operation into the largest provider of waste and recycling services on Long Island. Strategic acquisitions have been a part of our success and the 2015 acquisition of Progressive Waste Solutions was no exception.
Piling on: Within the past two years, Winters Brothers has continued its growth with acquisitions on the East End and the North Shore in Nassau County. Recently, we acquired two strategically located transfer stations in Suffolk County that allow us to move waste by rail.
Reduce, reuse: Today, recycling is one of the fastest-growing parts of our business and we operate the largest recycling center on Long Island.
Looming: The State of Waste report highlights the effects of a situation facing all of Long Island, whether you’re a municipality, construction company, environmental group or everyday citizen. With the Brookhaven Landfill set to close next year, Long Island will lose a major piece of its solid waste infrastructure with limited remaining options.
Heaps of trouble: When the landfill closes, tons of construction and demolition waste, incinerator ash and other waste will need to find a new place to go. Without a viable, environmentally sound solution in place, Long Islanders will have to deal with 60,000 additional trucks on the region’s crumbling roadways each year to get the waste elsewhere – more problems for commuters and a big negative impact on air quality.
Fresh ideas: Fortunately, there are more environmentally friendly options. The report, while outlining the challenges presented by this situation, offers over a dozen recommendations to address the crisis.
Comingled: Municipalities, regulators, civic leaders and industry icons like Winters Brothers must come together to support common-sense solutions for this regional issue.
Heavy lifting: Whether that solution is new legislation to promote more recycling or investments in underutilized infrastructure, Winters Brothers is ready to help these solutions become realities. With a 70-year history of serving Long Islanders, we look forward to being part of the solution.
Interview by Gregory Zeller
