Garbage Flow Ordinance Is Voided : Judiciary: Supreme Court strikes down New York town’s law requiring private haulers to take trash to city-owned processing plant.

The Supreme Court, insisting once again that the free market must control the flow of garbage, Monday struck down a New York town’s ordinance requiring private haulers to take trash to a city-owned processing plant.

The 6-3 ruling deals a setback to municipalities that have sought to finance costly trash-handling facilities by forcing haulers to take all their garbage to the plants. Haulers have said that they often can save money by shipping trash to other states or municipalities.

Two years ago, the court said that states and counties cannot refuse to accept out-of-town trash or hazardous waste by imposing laws or special fees. Monday’s decision also makes clear that cities cannot use laws to retain trash that could otherwise be shipped elsewhere.

In both instances, the justices said that waste-control measures had discriminated against the free flow of interstate commerce.

“I think this means it will be impossible to enforce a ‘flow control’ ordinance,” said Betty Jo Christian, the attorney for the New Jersey trash hauler who won Monday’s ruling.

At least 26 states allow municipalities to adopt “flow control” ordinances that restrict shipments of solid waste. These measures have been particularly popular in the Northeast, where local governments have built recycling or trash burning plants as an alternative to landfills. Often, the financing of these plants is based on a guaranteed flow of trash.

The case arose in 1991 when a private hauler was caught trying to sneak out of Clarkstown, N.Y., with a truckload of trash. The town charged $81 per ton at its facility. The hauler, C & A Carbone, said that it could save money by shipping the trash to landfills as far away as Indiana, Illinois or West Virginia.

Writing for the court, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy characterized the city’s law as a “protectionist” measure that restricts the flow of commerce.

“Discrimination against interstate commerce in favor of a local business or investment is invalid” in almost all instances, he wrote in the case (C & A Carbone vs. Clarkstown, 92-1402).

Sanitation officials in Los Angeles and San Diego said that the ruling will not have a major impact on their operations, although they said they are concerned that it limits their options for the future.

“The (Los Angeles) basin has been a free market area,” where trash haulers can choose from eight landfills based on the relative costs, said Joe Haworth, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation District.

But the ruling could complicate efforts to increase recycling in California, he said.

Under state law, local waste management plans must call for recycling 50% of all trash by the year 2000. Some counties plan to meet this goal by building new plants to separate recyclable items.

Generally, these plants would be financed through fees with the understanding that garbage collectors would deliver all their trash there. But under the court’s decision, officials could not force that policy on private haulers.

The Environmental Industry Assn., which represents trash haulers, called the ruling a “clear victory for consumers” because it will drive down prices.

But Richard Ruda, counsel for the State and Local Legal Center, said he was disappointed that the court “failed to show sympathy for local governments that are trying to deal with the difficult problems of waste disposal.”

The dissenters, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices David H. Souter and Harry A. Blackmun, said that the court should have upheld Clarkstown’s law because it allowed local officials to use local revenue to “finance a public improvement.”