Video: 'Voyage of the Mobro 4000 | Retro Report | The New York Times'

(Sunday, March 22, 1987, 9:00 p.m. EST) — The tugboat Break of Dawn, towing the barge Mobro 4000 loaded with 3,168 tons of refuse, set sail today from Islip, New York, bound for a pilot program in Morehead City, North Carolina, to be turned into methane.

Things, however, did not go as planned.

Based on reports that the garbage may have contained medical waste, the barge was turned away in North Carolina.

The barge was later turned away from ports in Louisiana, Mexico and Belize before finally returning to New York, where the garbage was ultimately burned in Brooklyn.