Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Event to be Held September 30, 2023

The Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management will hold its next Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Event on Saturday, Sept. 30th from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Dutchess County of Public Works Facility, located at 626 Dutchess Turnpike in the Town of Poughkeepsie; residents can access the event by taking Route 44 East to Burnett Boulevard. The collection is open to Dutchess County residents only.

This popular event is first-come, first-served, and residents should expect to experience wait times when they arrive at the location on Sept. 30th. Registration is limited to the first 400 households; pre-registration is required for this event, and there is a $10 registration fee; registration often reaches capacity quickly, so residents are encouraged to register promptly. Beginning on Wednesday, Aug. 30th, residents can register online or by calling (845) 463-6020. The registration fee can be paid online using a credit card or paid by check. Checks should be made payable to “Dutchess County Commissioner of Finance” and mailed to or dropped off to the Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management at 96 Sand Dock Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. 

This will be the final of Dutchess County’s three 2023 Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Events, which provide residents with a safe and responsible way to discard a diverse range of household items that cannot be disposed of through regular recycling or garbage bins. Acceptable items include television sets, computer monitors, telephones, pesticides, pool chemicals, and more. A complete list of acceptable items to bring to this disposal day is included below. Hazardous waste in containers larger than 10 gallons will not be accepted.

More information about the Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management’s Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Events is available online.

Acceptable Items:

 Product Containers Marked: “Warning,” “Hazardous,” “Flammable,” “Poisonous,” “Corrosive” 

 Lead based paints (NO latex or oil based!), photo chemicals, non-latex driveway sealer, pool chemicals, creosote, kerosene, flammable liquids, metal polish, turpentine, strippers, thinners, gasoline/oil mixture, brake fluid, antifreeze, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, adhesives, resins, solvents, fluorescent tubes (tape together or put in box to prevent breakage), propane tanks, mercury containing devices,  computer monitors, CPU’s, fax machines, printers, TV’s, stereos, telephones, lithium & sealed lead acid batteries (no automotive!).

Do Not Bring:

latex or oil based paints, stains, varnishes, ammunition or explosives, asbestos products, latex driveway sealer &, building or construction debris, tires, furniture, medical waste, pharmaceuticals, air conditioners, radioactive materials, scrap metal, metal drums or empty containers, motor oil, car batteries, alkaline or rechargeable batteries.

Next Waste Disposal For Household Hazardous Waste & Electronics Is 9/17/2022 And Open For Registration

Registration Open for Sept. 17th Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Event

Paint no longer accepted, can now be disposed of at local retailers year-round

Registration has begun for the Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management’s next Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Event, which will be held on Saturday, Sept. 17th from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Dutchess County Department of Public Works, located at 626 Dutchess Turnpike in the Town of Poughkeepsie; residents can access the event by taking Route 44 East to Burnett Boulevard. The collection is open to Dutchess County residents only.

Residents can register online or by calling (845) 463-6020. Registration is limited to the first 380 households; pre-registration is required for this event, and there is a $10 registration fee. The fee can be paid online using a credit card or paid by check; registration often reaches capacity quickly, so residents are encouraged to register promptly. Checks should be made payable to “Dutchess County Commissioner of Finance” and mailed to or dropped off at the Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management at 96 Sand Dock Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601. This popular event is first-come, first-served, and residents should expect to experience wait times when they arrive at the location due to high demand.

County Executive Marc Molinaro said, “Dutchess County’s popular Household Hazardous Waste Disposal and Electronics Recycling Events give residents an easy opportunity to make an impact on our environment – a responsibility in which we all play a vital role. Dutchess County is proud to offer these events, which help us preserve our planet for future generations, and we encourage residents to register to join us on Sept. 17th.”

This will be the final of Dutchess County’s three 2022 Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Events, which provide residents with a safe and responsible way to discard a diverse range of household items that cannot be disposed of through regular recycling or garbage bins. Acceptable items include television sets, computer monitors, telephones, pesticides, pool chemicals, and more. A complete list of acceptable items to bring to this disposal day is included below. Hazardous waste in containers larger than 10 gallons will not be accepted.

Dutchess County will no longer be accepting paint at its Household Hazardous Waste Events, as paint can now be recycled year-round at local participating retailers through New York’s PaintCare program. Residents can learn more at paintcare.org/states/new-york.

More information about the Dutchess County Division of Solid Waste Management’s Household Hazardous Waste Disposal & Electronics Recycling Events is available here >

Acceptable Items:

Product Containers Marked: “Warning,” “Hazardous,” “Flammable,” “Poisonous,” “Corrosive”

Photo chemicals, non-latex driveway sealer, pool chemicals, creosote, kerosene, flammable liquids, metal polish, turpentine, strippers, thinners, lead based paint, gasoline/oil mixture, brake fluid, antifreeze, auto fluids, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, adhesives, resins, solvents, propane tanks, mercury containing devices, button cell batteries for watches & hearing aids, computer monitors, CPUs, fax machines, printers, TVs, stereos, telephones, lithium & sealed lead acid batteries, fluorescent tubes (please tape together or put in box to prevent breakage)

Do Not Bring:

Ammunition or explosives, asbestos products, latex driveway sealer & latex paint, oil- or latex-based paint, stains, varnishes, building or construction debris, tires, furniture, medical waste, pharmaceuticals, air conditioners, radioactive materials, smoke detectors, scrap metal, metal drums or empty containers, motor oil, car batteries, alkaline or rechargeable batteries

Trash Tip: What To Do If You Missed Garbage Pickup After A Snow Storm Blizzard

Shoveling Tip: Carve a place out for your trash cans to sit at the end of the street. Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

Shoveling Tip: Carve a place out for your trash cans to sit at the end of the street.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

The past 2 snow storms have hit on a Monday. How do I know? Because trash pickup for our neighborhood is on a Tuesday, and after the first snow storm, I forgot to carve a place in the snow for Trash and Recycling cans, and needed to leave the cans at the end of the driveway. Don’t assume that garbage pickup is canceled just because of a major snowfall. Those collection trucks from Royal Carting, the trash company contracted with the City of Beacon to remove your trash and recycling weekly, usually ventures out in the worst of weather.

However, if your cans are wedged into the snow during a storm and cannot be easily lifted out, the Garbage collectors might move on. They do need the cans to be easy to access. If you carefully carved out a place in the snow for your cans, and then dragged your cans to the end of the driveway the night before, only to find them boxed in by new snow heaps from the snow plows overnight, there is a chance that your garbage won’t get picked up.

Fear not. You can call Royal Carting directly and request to be put on their “list” of a pickup, possibly the day you call if you call early enough. You’ll need to have your cans back out by the street and easy to access for when the collection truck swings by again. However, if your cans aren’t back out in time, they will keep on driving by.

Good luck!

Where Does Beacon's Recycling and Trash Go? Royal Carting Answers The Question

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Like a Billie Eilish song asking where do we go when we sleep, you might be wondering: “Where does my trash and recycling go when I throw it away?” The trash used to go to the city dump (now called the transfer stationwe took a field trip there and wrote about it). Some things go to the transfer station, like trash you yourself are hauling (rubble from your garage, couches, TVs, etc.) when you can’t dump them on an Electronics Recycling Day or some such.

Where does the rubble from the cans go once it is collected by the trash trucks? A Little Beacon Blog reached out to Royal Carting by way of their attorney, Jim Constantino (who frequents City Council meetings when negotiating the yearly contract renewal or answering recycling or solid waste questions), to answer this question, in what became a few questions:

ALBB: Where is the recycling dumped for Beacon?

Republic (Re Community), 508 Fishkill Avenue, Beacon, N.Y.”

ALBB: Where is the trash dumped for Beacon?

“Royal utilizes the Dutchess County Waste-to-Energy Plant (read a brief history here), Sand Dock Road, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. The waste disposed of at the plant (which is Federal Clean Air Act-compliant) is used as fuel to produce steam that is sold to Central Hudson to generate electricity. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has qualified the ash byproduct with a ‘Beneficial Use Designation’ as alternative operating cover.”

ALBB: Is an incinerator used for Beacon's trash at all, and if so, where is that located?

“See above. Royal utilizes the Dutchess County Waste-To-Energy Plant. Solid waste delivered to the plant is used as fuel.”

ALBB: Do the trucks look the same as they do as when they are picking up regular trash?

“The trucks are the same design and color - green Mack rear load-compaction vehicles. Truck No. 199 collects the recycling. Truck No. 247 collects the solid waste.”

Read more about how recycling works in Beacon and why it is crucial to rinse your plastics, not put soggy paper into the cans, and make sure you know some of the other things you can’t put into the recycling can.

The Recycling Market That Crashed - How The Crash Impacted Beacon

Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

EDITOR'S NOTE, BEFORE YOU READ:
This article was written in 2018 and never published; we missed the window of timeliness. Now, with the Plastic Bag Ban, we are publishing it. It helps serve as a background to any changes in recycling, trash collection, and any new environmental regulation.

During a City Council Workshop meeting on May 29, 2018, at which the City Council was talking to Royal Carting (the garbage company that picks up our trash) about the following year’s trash and recycling pickup contract, a few observational comments were made by then-Mayor Randy Casale and Councilperson at Large George Mansfield about how the recycling market had turned "topsy-turvy," in part because what is being put into the recycling bin is contaminated - aka coated with food and other nonrecyclable materials. 

Beacon Used To Earn Money From Recycling - Now It’s An Expense

Beacon used to make money off the recycling collected from homes. There was a market for purchasing recyclable items like cardboard and plastic. However, thanks to China tightening its requirement on how clean the recycling needs to be - almost 100 percent clean, as in rinsed, no food on it, no soggy paper, no plastic bottle caps floating around the recycling bin, that sort of thing - Beacon is paying to have the recycling taken away. That’s a hit to Beacon’s budget.

Worse, the recycling that is being taken away might not be getting recycled at all since China won’t buy most of it.

Deep Dive Into The Recycling Problem

We are taking a Deep Dive into this issue, because when you ask yourself: "If it's not being recycled, where is it going?" you get some pretty bleak images of the floating barge of trash around New York City, the wad of plastic floating around the ocean, the massive amounts of methane gas coming from piles of trash, and food waste in landfills causing methane fumes.

You quickly see how there is not enough space on Earth to put the trash. And no, shooting it up into space is not an option. Space is already littered with orbiting satellite debris from when countries experiment with shooting things up there (yes, they have actually mapped out each floating piece of "space junk" if it's the size of a softball or larger to track it). So what gives?

Kayleigh Metviner Zaloga introduces us to the issues in order to help us discover and create a solution. But first, you'll need to get familiar with these basic ideas:

  • Money: Recycling is good for the planet, but it has to pay for itself and be profitable in order for it to be done. Businesses have been created to deliver recycling solutions: They collect the goods, sort them, clean them, even using technology to identify it (with high-tech machines and people who sort), and sell it to other businesses, who turn it into carpet or clothing or recycled paper, which consumers then buy as retail products.

  • Value: Different types of recycling, like glass bottles, newspaper, cardboard, or plastic to-go containers, have different values for these businesses. A single item, like a plastic laundry detergent bottle, might have a really high value (but is dirty inside with the last drops of detergent, so the processing center has to clean it). A wine bottle, on the other hand, is really recyclable, but is dirty inside with old wine. Cleaning the inside of a tall and narrow glass bottle is difficult and costly, which kills its market value.

  • A Solution Caused A Problem: Sadly, the invention of "single-stream" recycling, which is when you can throw ALL of the recycling into one can, is now messing up the system because it's all too much to sort. Oddities like a single bottle cap from a plastic water bottle is considered "contamination," but if that cap is attached to the bottle, it's all good. So convoluted.

  • Buyers: China was the biggest buyer of paper to be recycled. They didn't care if it was a little dirty. Now they do. As of January 1, 2018, they basically put the kibosh on buying it. This has created backed-up piles of compressed recycled paper waiting to be reused, but those bundles sit at recycling processing centers with nowhere to go because no one is buying it.

  • Food: Food makes up most of our trash. And wrecks a lot of recycling! Good news: Food composting is really easy!!! You just scrape the food into a special bin with a critter-proof lid, and have companies like Community Compost Company take it away to be turned into rich soil, without any of the big technology involved.

OK, now you're ready for Kayleigh's article on where this started:

Recycling in Communities

By Kayleigh Metviner Zaloga

Most people don’t realize that municipal recycling (aka household recycling) worked so well for so long because certain materials in our trash, like newsprint, glass, and plastic bottles, had economic value and could be sold to make everything from copy paper to carpets, making recycling profitable for processing facilities and a boon to city budgets.

In 2016, the City of Beacon was paid for every ton of recyclables picked up from residents and brought to the ReCommunity (now Republic Services Recycling) processing center.

The increase in recycling also reduced the volume of trash in everyone’s bins, saving the city money on garbage disposal. It was a win-win, both financially and environmentally. But at a presentation at a City Council Workshop on August 27, 2018, Steve Hastings of Republic Services informed the City Council that “recycling is broken,” profits are nowhere to be seen, and the current model may not be sustainable. Governor Cuomo has called for a series of meetings on what to do with the recycling being collected that may be ending up in landfills, and Beacon’s former mayor also indicated, in a past City Council meeting on May 29, 2018, that other counties in the state may stop recycling all together.

What’s Going On?

There are three main factors in this recycling industry sea change:

American mixed paper used to sell for an average of $75 per ton. Now it sells for $5 per ton.

1. China Basically Stopped Buying Lots of Recycling on January 1, 2018
China was the largest importer of recycled materials for decades, and the United States was one of its largest sources. Effective January 1, 2018, however, the Chinese government banned the import of 24 types of solid waste, including scrap plastics and mixed paper. They used to have a 3 percent contamination cap that, according to Steve, was rarely checked. Now they have a 0.5 percent contamination cap, and it is regularly checked by China by opening up bales of processed recycling at the docks, and sending it back if it has more than 0.5 percent dirtiness. Steve says it's an impossible standard to hit, despite their efforts. This triggered a huge drop in the prices that various municipal recycling components sold for. For example, American mixed paper used to sell for an average of $75 per ton. Now it sells for $5 per ton.

Recycling needs to be 100 percent clean before going into the bin. Any plastic with food on it won’t be recycled. Wet paper or cardboard won’t be recycled, either. Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

Recycling needs to be 100 percent clean before going into the bin. Any plastic with food on it won’t be recycled. Wet paper or cardboard won’t be recycled, either.
Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth Martin

2. Contamination: Food (i.e. Dirty Recycling)
The leftover lettuce in your plastic salad to-go container. That last scoop of peanut butter in the jar. Yogurt still in the yogurt cup. Wet cardboard. Plastic grocery bags. Garden hoses. Greasy pizza boxes. Plain old garbage. All of these are things that do not belong in recycling bins. Throwing them in anyway contaminates all of the salvageable materials; worse, it can result in whole loads of recyclables being sent to a landfill. High contamination levels were also one of the main reasons the Chinese government banned many foreign recyclables.

People really need to have it sink in that recycling is really just a band-aid at this point… The reality is that a lot of it doesn’t end up being recycled. People will throw everything they think of in recycling that might work, and it becomes dead weight for the company that processes it.
— Atticus Lanigan, Owner, Zero to Go

3. “Wishful Recycling” - Feel-Good Recycling That Actually Kills Recycling
”Wishful recycling” was a term Steve used, for when someone throws something into the recycling container and feels good about it, but that thing is actually not recyclable. Like plastic of the wrong recycling number, a dirty wine bottle or yogurt quart, or soggy paper or cardboard. He actually stressed this directive: “When in doubt, throw it out.” They really don’t want mistaken recycling. At all.

Plummeting Profits In Recyclables Could Kill Collections

No one ever thought there was a cost to recycling because the commodities covered it,” Hastings told the City Council. “So then when the commodities market flipped on its ear… Now all of a sudden it’s a red mark on every budget across the country.
— Steve Hastings, Republic Services

Since the announcement of the Chinese ban, prices in the recycling market have plummeted. Republic Services in Beacon is still accepting and processing mixed paper and newsprint, but high contamination rates and low prices may drive the facility to reconsider, Steve informed the City Council at the August workshop meeting.

Although reducing the volume of garbage in landfills is a good thing, simply shifting that garbage to recycling facilities is not. If the material cannot be processed, sold, and reused, it will likely end up in the landfill anyway.

“No one ever thought there was a cost to recycling because the commodities covered it,” Hastings told the City Council. “So then when the commodities market flipped on its ear… Now all of a sudden it’s a red mark on every budget across the country.” A complete market flip is no exaggeration: Materials that Republic Services sold for $120 per ton in July 2017 dropped to only $32 per ton last month (editorial reminder that this was originally written in 2018) after China’s ban was in place.

What Is Happening To Individual Markets for Recycling?

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“We do have to come up with a model that is durable, sustainable … and isn’t captive to just the commodity values,” Hastings said. Glass, for example, is no longer a profitable material to process in most municipalities because it breaks, and in fact has a “negative recycling value,” meaning most recycling facilities have to pay for the material to be sorted out of the other recycling, then hauled away instead of selling it for a profit. The glass collected in Beacon's residential recycling bins is currently sent - at a financial loss - to a processing facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Some counties upstate have been transferring their glass to landfills for years. Here, it sounds like you should cart the glass bottles to Key Food or Hannaford, or to the local place in Beacon that can allocate your money back to a local PTA/O for Beacon school kids.

Some Counties Across the Country Are Stopping Single-Stream Recycling

Even though glass, newsprint, and certain metals and plastics can be recycled and remade into all kinds of products, plummeting prices, rising processing costs, and constricting markets are making recycling industry analysts and municipal leaders alike reconsider the current system. In some parts of the country, especially in western states like Idaho and Washington, municipalities have stopped collecting the materials they can’t find a market for, like the scrap plastics and paper now banned by China. Other communities, like Saugerties, are ditching single-stream for different collection bins and then use Beacon’s recycling location to dump commingled products.

Is It The Tariff War? China Warned About Contamination For Years

Contamination, also known in the industry as residue, is all the stuff that can’t be recycled by a particular facility and should not be mixed into the recyclables sent there. A high contamination level makes processing materials more difficult, and it was also the driving force behind China’s import ban. As more and more municipalities implement recycling programs, especially the single-stream variety that lets residents throw all of their recyclables into one container, companies that process these materials are noticing higher levels of contamination in the resulting haul.

But China Needs and Wants The Recycling - They Are Hurting

China used to buy pulp for $220 a ton. After the ban, they buy it for $700 a ton.
— Steve Hastings, Republic Services

China is not having a great time with this ban either. The thing is, Steve explained, China needed our recycled paper for pulp. They don't have their own pulp, and they need to buy it. According to Steve, China used to buy pulp for $220 a ton. After the ban, they bought it for $700 a ton.

“So where is the savings for China?” Councilperson George Mansfield asked.

“There is no savings," explained Steve. "It’s a disaster on the Chinese front for the capitalist side of China. From the government standpoint, they have an anti-pollution campaign they are running hard. We never thought they would go six to eight months without the material [pulp aka paper].”

Whether it be nonrecyclable materials (like diapers, garden hoses, and syringes) or simply recyclables that have too much food garbage on them (peanut butter jars and to-go containers are notorious for this), contamination has become an increasing - and increasingly costly - problem.

Since too much contamination, even with other types of recyclable materials (e.g. glass in the newspaper bale), renders materials essentially useless, recycling centers need to spend more and more resources sorting and cleaning everything that is dropped off. This involves buying or inventing more elaborate technology, as well as hiring people to pick through the recycling, remove inappropriate items, and clean debris off materials.

At the Beacon Republic Services facility, the mixed recyclables move through “a series of sorting tables, devices, magnets, opticals, and people” - over 50 people per shift - to end up separated by material and grade, explained Steve. Spending more on processing would not be a problem if there were increasingly profitable markets for the end products, but that is where some of the biggest changes are taking place. Because the profits have disappeared, processing centers may close altogether, thus eliminating those jobs. Already, one of the biggest processing centers in the country in Miami has closed "overnight," said Steve.

Worldwide Trend of Rejecting Dirty Recycling

The Chinese government’s main reason for banning foreign recyclables and lowering contamination limits was that the materials were coming in too highly contaminated and were creating an even bigger pollution problem for the country. Although American companies have responded by increasing their exports to other countries, primarily in Asia, some of these countries appear to be following China’s lead and may institute their own limits and bans.

Republic Services currently sells materials to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, but the shipping costs to these countries are significantly higher than what it used to cost to ship to China. Trading with China also had the added benefit of forming a kind of shipping loop, where U.S. recyclables were shipped on containers to China, and Chinese manufacturers shipped finished goods back to the U.S.

An Opportunity For A U.S. Recycling Market? Maybe, But Risky…

Would the U.S. market develop to replace the work that China was doing? "We’d love to see it," said Steve. But investing in a new facility is a risk. What if China opens up again? "There have been two paper mills open in the last 10 years in North America. They are both in Indiana, and they are both cardboard manufacturers. They’re dead in the middle of the country because of the fear that [if] the export economy opens up again, they fear they won’t be able to compete again."

As for domestic markets, there is simply not enough demand for these kinds of production materials in the U.S., though that could change in the future. A strong need for something always inspires entrepreneurs to bring on the solutions. In the meantime, American recyclables are looking at other options.

Real-Life Effects At Home In Beacon

“We are at a crisis at this point,” said City Council member Amber Grant at the Workshop meeting. "The fact that we’re barely even recycling what we think we are, and now we have this issue on top of it which will now impact people's pocketbooks... We need to teach people how to recycle better and give them the tools to do it." Councilperson John Rembert voiced his agreement.

“The economics are critical,” Steve said. “The model is broken the way it’s written. The processors need to get a processing fee, and the commodity piece has to be a shared component of it."

It has only been two years since we last looked at the costs and benefits of recycling in Beacon, but we are a long way from the days when the City earned money from each ton of recyclables collected. That additional income is no longer part of the arrangement, and going forward, Republic Services will seek a new rate structure to cover the increased processing costs that are not made up for by selling the materials.

In addition to considering how processing facilities are paid, Steve and the City Council members discussed limiting the materials that can be thrown into the single-stream recycling bins. “We have to simplify what we put in there,” Steve said. “There are a lot of items that can be recycled, [but] they may not belong in the [recycle bin].”

The hope is that by collecting fewer items and emphasizing the need to clean and dry objects before throwing them in the bin, there will be less contamination and more usable material. This is not to say that everything else should be sent to the landfill, however. Steve suggested having drop-offs and other arrangements for other materials.

Addressing The Crisis At The New York State Level

At the New York State level earlier this month, Governor Andrew Cuomo directed the Department of Environmental Conservation to convene stakeholder meetings to identify how the state can improve recycling and even “expand municipal recycling programs” in the face of changing global markets. One goal of this initiative will be to identify open markets for recycled materials. The inaugural meeting was on August 29.

Suggestions to Save Recycling

People's behaviors will need to change if any trash is going to be reduced. Here are some suggestions:

  • Reuse the durable products that can have a second life right in your own home, like glass jars.

  • “When in doubt, throw it out,” said Steve. Ouch! Only throw in items that you know are accepted by your local facility. Even though we may want more goods to be recycled, this aspirational recycling only leads to higher contamination rates and more materials being sent to landfills.

  • Clean It: “Clean material is the answer,” said Steve. Thoroughly clean any food debris, laundry detergent, and other non-recyclable materials off containers. Consider switching to powder detergent in the cardboard box.

  • Cap It: “If a cap falls off a bottle, it’s residual [aka contamination]. If it’s on the bottle, it’s great.” Screw lids onto plastic bottles before throwing them in.

  • Glass Bottles - Skip the Bin: If you want to give your glass bottles a better chance at being turned into new bottles, put them in the specialized bottle deposit machines that sort them, crush them, and keep them free of contamination.

  • Food Composting - For Real! 40% Reduction in Trash: Aside from smarter recycling, Atticus Lanigan, owner of Zero To Go, an education-based waste management company focused on composting and recycling in Beacon, also suggests taking a hard look at the other types of waste we routinely throw away. “40 percent of our waste is organic and rots in landfills,” she said, even though much of it can easily be composted. “People really need to have it sink in that recycling is really just a Band-Aid at this point… The reality is that a lot of it doesn’t end up being recycled. People will throw everything they think of in recycling that might work, and it becomes dead weight for the company that processes it.”

To Be Continued...

This story about how recycling as we know it is in jeopardy is to be continued, as perhaps we all make changes to reduce our footprint, both in terms of our rotting trash and the greenhouse gases it emits, as well as the growing stock of recyclable material that can’t rot and has nowhere to go.

New and Easy Guidelines To Recycling In Beacon To Avoid "Wish Cycling"

Before the representative from ReCommunity (acquired by Republic Services), Steve Hastings, presented his in-depth “Recycling Has Halted and Here’s Why 101 Class” to City Council back in May 2018, it was easy for people to say: “My recycling bin is full! I recycle everything! It’s great!”

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Thing is - it wasn’t great - and all that extra stuff that may have been thrown into the recycling bin - like a kids’ toy, a dirty bottle of liquid laundry detergent, or a yogurty yogurt cup - was and is contaminating the recycling batch, rendering it useless. And while Steve never committed to saying what happens to disposed of matter that is not recycled, you would need to just think about where the recycling goes when it can’t be recycled - straight to the trash. Wherever that is, and in whatever form that takes.

After the de-brief and the resulting feelings of “Horrors! This is awful! Nothing I am recycling is probably being recycled!” people wanted clearer guidelines. The Beacon Green Coalition heard that call loud and clear, and developed a nifty new flyer in 2019. You may still see it hanging around. Ask the city to email you one if you want to print it out at home. Here’s what it says:

“Wish-cycling” - When You Think You’re Recycling But Really You’re Just Messing It All Up

Steve the recycling professional stressed the harmful effects of “Wish-Cycling.” That moment when you empty the applesauce jar and you toss it into the blue bin. Or when you just finished a sushi meal and you toss all of the soy sauce- and wasabi-covered plastic plates into the blue bin. Or when you’re cleaning out your kid’s toy room, and you recycle about 20 little plastic toys and lone battery backs.

“When In Doubt, Throw It Out”

Steve actually said this during the presentation in 2018. Several times. He begged people to throw away things if they weren’t sure if it should be recycled or not. But how do you know? How would you know that soggy cardboard or a meat juice-soaked paper bag was not eligible anymore for recycling?

In the past, the only way to know what to throw into the recycling bins were noted on the labels affixed to their lids but after some time, those labels tend to fade in the elements.

In the past, the only way to know what to throw into the recycling bins were noted on the labels affixed to their lids but after some time, those labels tend to fade in the elements.

The Easy-Peasy Recycling Guide

Here’s the breakdown of everyday items that can or cannot be recycled, as produced by the Beacon Green Coalition:

Rigid Plastic

YES (rinse everything)
Beverage containers: jugs, bottles, cups.
Food containers: clear clamshells, tubs, laundry detergent bottles (but rinse it 100% - if you can’t, then switch to powder)

TIP: If it’s paper or plastic and smaller than a credit card, throw it out.

NO
Plastic bags, straws (they always slip out of the recycling batch - too small), plastic utensils (forks, knives, spoons), caps (smaller than a quarter - just screw it back onto the beverage container), plastic wrap, Styrofoam, items smaller than a credit card.

Paper & Cardboard

YES
Newspapers, magazines, brochures, paper bags, mail including junk mail, envelopes with plastic windows, phone books, waxed cartons (e.g. juice and milk), shredded paper in a clear tied bag, corrugated cardboard and paperboard boxes, paper towel and toilet paper rolls, foil-lined cartons (for soup stock, etc).

NO
Soiled paper, food-soiled paper plates, pizza boxes, tissues, paper towels, coffee cups or lids.

Metal

YES
Aluminum and metal cans, metal jar lids and caps, empty aerosol cans, rinsed foil wrapping, pie plates, and trays.

NO
Hangers (return to dry cleaner), scrap metal (bring to a scrap metal recycler), foil juice pouches.

Glass

YES
Bottles and jars, other food containers, beverage containers, all cleaned glass products (even broken ones),

NO
Pyrex, ceramics, light bulbs, window glass.

Don’t Recycle These Household Items:

  • Batteries, electronics, cords (can be recycled at Best Buy - even Christmas lights!).

  • Plastic bags (take them to any large grocery store).

  • Plastic children’s toys

Handy Tips

Rinse rinse rinse! It’s a total waste if you don’t. You might as well not throw it into the recycling bin. It contaminates the entire batch. China won’t buy it, and we’re sunk.

Don’t bag the recycling - loose loose loose! Unless it’s shredded paper. And then put it into a clear plastic bag.

When in doubt, throw it out. :(… But let’s just know what to recycle in the first place, thanks to this handy guide from the City of Beacon and Beacon Green Coalition!

Zero To Go Transitions Residential Compost Pickup To Community Compost Company (CCC)

Photo Credit: Zero To Go

Photo Credit: Zero To Go

Zero To Go (ZTG), an education-based waste management company focused on composting and recycling, was the first to offer residential pickup of food waste in Beacon in order to keep it from landfills, and eventual methane gas production. After years of operating food composting pickup service in Beacon, Zero To Go has transitioned its Beacon Compost Residential and Farmers Market Collection Program to Community Compost Company (CCC), a New Paltz-based company that is currently servicing several Beacon businesses, according to Zero To Go’s soon-to-be sole owner, Atticus Lanigan. “We are very excited about this,” said Atticus in a letter to Beacon Residential Compost customers, and proceeded to list the reasons:

  • CCC pioneered the Table to Farm compost collection service in the Hudson Valley and is experienced handling residential and commercial collection.

  • CCC is a New York State certified woman-owned business based in the Hudson Valley.

  • CCC is reliable, has great people. and follows the "4P" ethos (People, Planet, Place and Profit).

  • CCC processes the scraps they collect into organic soil amendments on farms in the Hudson Valley, and is already composting the food scraps from ZTG events and collection.

Zero To Go will continue to service events, and “can be hired to handle waste at events in a responsible way,” said Atticus.

Why Does Methane Gas From Food Matter?

If you’ve never experienced methane gas production, try leaving a smoothie in your car in a closed coffee mug for three weeks, and then open it in your kitchen. Spoiler alert: There is so much pressure built up inside of the closed cup from the food rot process, the top will shoot off and hit anything across the room, cracking your plastic water filter container. Some people build potato guns. You could easily build a smoothie gun with yogurt, bananas and strawberries with minimal effort, just some time.

The History Of Zero To Go

Zero To Go was best known for being hired to manage trash/recycling/food waste at events, and branched into servicing businesses in Beacon by picking up their food waste. Zero To Go, founded by Sarah Womer, then launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise $20,000 (see this interview with Sarah in this Tin Shingle Training TuneUp webinar on how she did that), to start their residential food pickup program, originally powered by people on bikes.

zero to go event waste collection.jpg

Fast-forward years and hours of work later, Sarah took a full time job at Riverkeeper, and Atticus Lanigan came in to manage the company. In addition to raising two children, Atticus has a background in Sociology and Urban Planning, and also works for Dutchess Outreach, an organization fighting food insecurity in Dutchess County that offers a hot meals program (formerly known as a “soup kitchen”).

Says Sarah when A Little Beacon Blog reached out for comment: “Atticus and I put in huge numbers of hours and sacrificed a lot of our own time to run and grow this company (like any start-up owners do)! It's been a real labor of love. It feels good to see the compost program take flight under new ownership - if we have a strong, visible, affordable compost program in town, it's something to be very proud of!”

Today, Atticus continues her work for Dutchess Outreach, and officially moves into the sole owner role of Zero To Go, which will specialize in event waste management. Sarah works in Harlem at a sustainability consulting firm. Both are always moving and shaking in the world of waste management and their commitment to educating about it. They will be contributing in other areas, so keep your eyes peeled.

Plastic Bags Out Of Food Compositing

Plastics bags are leaving the Hudson Valley (see press release about Governor Cuomo banning single-use plastic bags from New York State), including the food compositing arena. Said Atticus to prep customers about plastic bags: “CCC will not be accepting compostable plastics in the buckets, which includes compostable bags. This will be the biggest change as many of you are using compostable plastic bags in the process of getting your food scraps out to your buckets.”

Atticus began preparing Zero To Go customers for a plastic bag transition: “Ultimately, the use of bio-plastics is not ideal. As lawmakers work to deal with the overwhelming issue of garbage, many are seeking the abandonment of all single-use plastics and plastics in general. By drawing ourselves away from the use of it, we will be ahead of the curve.”

SIDE NOTE: Food Rot Container Tip

Fortunately, my compost food collection container is in a very pretty white jar from Pottery Barn, and my food collection system does not involve a plastic bag. The container is a porcelain flour jar that I repurposed to be a food compost container with a rubber-sealed lid. You could also find such a jar at Utensil or maybe even Raven Rose in Beacon. I just walk this pretty pot of rot to my compost bucket outside on my back porch, and that’s it. Happy to not have to wean myself off of a plastic bag! Am currently working on weaning myself off of Ziploc baggies.

To sign up for residential food pickup from Community Compost Company, click here. It’s about $32/month for weekly pickup, and lower rates are available for fewer pickups.

Giant Yellow Marker Collection Recycling Box At South Avenue and Sargent Elementary Schools

Photo Credit: South Avenue Elementary School

Photo Credit: South Avenue Elementary School

“Penny,” the marker collection box at Sargent Elementary. Photo Credit: Anna Sullivan Youatt

“Penny,” the marker collection box at Sargent Elementary.
Photo Credit: Anna Sullivan Youatt

With recycling markets tanking everywhere (see New York Times article “As Costs Skyrocket, More U.S. Cities Stop Recycling”) now that China is not buying most of the recycling it used to - especially from the United States - it’s clear that it’s becoming harder to recycle, and waste has been building up more than we realized.

Crayola Launches Fun Marker Collection Recycling Bins

What is catching on, therefore, is increased awareness of ways people can tweak the small stuff in their lives to get rid of stuff without throwing it into the trash. Crayola offers an initiative for schools looking to reduce waste, called ColorCycle, and information can be found here. Says South Avenue Elementary’s Principal Laura Cahill: “The South Avenue PTA started the color box in conjunction with Crayola ColorCycle, and we are encouraging families to send in their old markers throughout the year. We also put markers in here at school as they get used up during class.”

Says Ryan Green, Vice President of South Avenue’s PTA: “Any kind of marker can be collected from any brand. Dry-erase, permanent, doesn't matter. You can send them to school with your kids, and teachers send the little messengers to dump the markers into the tube.”

market collection vase.JPG

How To Contain The Dead Markers Before Depositing Into Marker Collection Box

If you’re in a house that has a high marker-loss count, where separated tops and dried-out bodies are found scattered on the floor and in the couch, they now have a place to rest and find a second life. If you don’t have a kid at South Avenue, consider setting aside your markers for a friend who does.

To get into the habit of keeping trashed markers out of the regular trash can, simply designate a pretty box or container in your home, and collect the markers over time. I just stepped on a dead blue dry-erase marker last night. Top on the floor, body on the desk. Dried out and done.

Also, Bottles and Cans Collections For Recycling And Fundraising

The South Avenue PTA, and several other PTA/Os at other schools, also have Bottle and Can Collection points where you can give the school your bottles and cans instead of putting them into your big orange-top recycling bin. It has been announced by recycling professionals at Beacon City Council meetings that glass collection is becoming difficult to sort through. Broken glass contaminates the recycling collection at large, and can make it so that big batches of waste (aka recycling materials) are no longer eligible to be recycled.

Trash Cans Replaced On Main Street For Better Containment - At No Cost To City

beacon-replaces-trash-cans-MAIN.png

As Beacon increases in popularity as a tourist destination as well as a lifestyle change destination, away from the big city - or just by people relocating here for job opportunities - trash disposal needs also change. Two major shifts have happened that triggered a metal trash can swap-out on Main Street:

  • Overflowing Trash: Residents have complained of trash overflowing from metal trash cans on Main Street after regular weekends, three-day holiday weekends, or weekends that have special public events.

  • Recycling: The crash of the recycling market has rocked recycling collection across many communities in the United States. In short, most of the recycling isn’t getting recycled because China, who buys most of the world’s recycling, has tightened its restrictions on what it will accept. Most recycling sent to China is dirty, as in, coated in food, contaminated with non-recyclable objects (like plastic bottle caps not screwed onto a bottle - who knew?!) or is wet paper (only dry, non-shredded paper is accepted - nothing smaller than 6” x 6” actually, according to Beacon’s recycling processing center).

  • Recycling Must Be Clean: What came out of the 2018 City Council Meeting discovery session with the facility who processes our recycling, is that dirty recycling does not get recycled. If you throw in a plastic container coated with food: it won’t get rinsed at the recycling center. If you throw in straight up food, or other items that are not part of the Single Stream, you are contaminating the recycling collection, and the haul cannot be used. This makes recycling on Main Street pretty useless, being that most people throw in food containers that have food on or in them, and items that are not recyclable at all.

City Council Agrees To Larger Hole At Top Of Trash Cans

The Beacon City Council, which consists of four representatives (called Council People) from each area of the City, as well as a Member-At-Large, the Mayor, the City Administrator, and the City’s Attorney, all consider many details about how the City of Beacon functions. They even think about the design of the trash cans. At one point years ago, two holes were considered to help with trash: a small one for recycling (presumably cups and other small objects), and trash. But not too large, so as to guard against residents of nearby apartments putting their household trash into the public containers, as recalled by Mayor Casale during a City Council meeting.

Trash Cans Replaced At No Cost To The City

During the May 29, 2018 City Council Workshop meeting during which Royal Carting, the City’s contracted trash collection company, presented their proposed budget for a new contract, Royal Carting’s presenting attorney, James Constantino, suggested a replacement of the cans at no cost to the City. “The designs of the cans are not accommodating or giving capacity. We have agreed with the Highway Superintendent for a new can… I can assure you the Mayor has been very clear that he wants the trash cans maintained, and doesn't want to see litter.”

Beacon’s City Administrator confirmed with A Little Beacon Blog in August 2018 that the City was moving forward with the replacement of the cans. By January 2019, the new trash cans lined Main Street.