New York City officials incinerate seized cannabis at Reworld facility

New York City officials plan to incinerate four tons of seized cannabis at a Reworld facility on Long Island.

Mayor Eric Adams joined other drug seizure law enforcement leaders Aug. 28 at Reworld’s thermomechanical reuse facility, an industrial incinerator that turns heat from burning waste into electricity.

The cannabis was seized from roughly 1,000 unlicensed sellers in the last four months, PIX 11 reports. According to the mayor and sheriff, the cannabis was laced with fentanyl, insecticides and other harmful substances.

The decision to incinerate the seized drugs was made to prevent others from getting their hands on them, Adams said during the news conference.

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“[To] place it in a landfill, it just really opens the door to people going to the landfills and trying to salvage whatever they can," Adams said.

PIX 11 reports that cannabis is first loaded into the facility, called Reworld Hempstead, and then moved by front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to the incoming trash stream. Once transferred to a storage room, an industrial claw will pick up the material and move it to the incinerator.

Adams was at the controls of the claw with the help of a Reworld technician at the Aug. 28 event, using the facility’s claw to dump the seized cannabis in a chute that leads to the incinerator.

The 4 tons of cannabis items were enough to serve as fuel for the incinerator to power a turbine creating enough electricity to energize about 80 homes for a month, PIX 11 reports.