Recycling rules

Changes to take effect in January

By Malka Eisenberg

Issue of Dec. 5, 2008 / 8 Kislev 5769

Beginning in January, all residents and some businesses in Sanitation District 1 will be required to separate recyclables from trash at home, rather than relying on the district’s Materials Recovery Facility, as they have been doing since 1995.

Yellow barrels marked “recyclables only” will be distributed on Jan. 7 and 14 and the program will commence on Jan. 21 and 28.  Notices were mailed to residents in November announcing that recyclables will be picked up on alternate Wednesdays, thus changing the current refuse schedule from Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday to Monday, Friday and Tuesday, Thursday.

Cans, aluminum pans and foil, plastics, corrugated cardboard, newspapers, paper grocery bags, shredded paper (in a paper bag) and other items should be placed in the recycling containers that will be delivered and placed beside the residents’ trash cans either by the side or rear of their homes. Only clear plastic bags should be used if needed and no glass should be placed in the yellow recyclables containers. Heavily soiled containers, aerosol cans, styrofoam and pizza boxes, among other items, are not to be placed in the recycling barrels.

“The State Department of Environmental Conservation said we weren’t adhering word by word to the existing State statute,” said Nat Swergold, spokesperson and General Counsel to the Sanitary District 1 of the Town of Hempstead. “We brought the case to get the courts to let us know if we could operate as we had with the DEC’s blessing for 15 years.”

In August 2007, Nassau County Supreme Court Judge William R. Lamarca ruled, in a case between the State and the District, that New York State Law requires “source separation,” meaning that residents separate recyclables from garbage before it is collected and processed.

In 1995, the sanitation department opened a Materials Recovery Facility that processes mixed solid waste, separating recyclables and other items manually and mechanically from waste matter.

“Once the facility became operational, the facility could do the job,” noted Swergold. “The homeowner did not have to do the physical separation that is now required.”

The MRF currently operates five days a week, 10 hours a day. Under this system the district collects and processes about 39,000 tons of solid waste a year. In 2007 they recycled 26,644 tons of materials; about 42 percent of trash collected was recycled, which, according to their web site, is the highest percentage of recycling for any municipal entity in Nassau County.

“The system will continue to be in place,” stressed Swergold. “We expect the staff will handle the task and handle it well. We are hopeful it will be productive and further enhance our recovery of recyclables.”

“It will be much more difficult,” predicted Ben, a sanitation worker. “We’re not happy, but it has to be done.”

He pointed out that there will be an increase in trash on the other days and that the newspapers alone will fill the recyclables container.

“I think it’s going to be hard to get used to,” said Gail Silverman, a Valley Stream resident. “It’s going to be hard to change habits, but everybody I know has been recycling and I want to do the right thing.”

She said that she needs more details regarding which items go into which bag or container. She also noted that she switched to cloth bags for grocery shopping.

“I want to do whatever I can to save the ecology of the world,” she added.

For further information, call the recycling hotline at (516) 239-3606 or go to their web site, sanitarydistrict1.com.