Town of Huntington, NY - News Details
12/11/2014 - Huntington Announces Two Major Recycling Changes for 2015
Huntington residents will see two major changes involving recycling pickups starting in January, both aimed at getting residents to recycle more of what they use rather than leave it with other garbage.
Starting January 1, residents will no longer need to separate bottles and cans from newspapers, magazines and cardboard and put them out for collection on alternate weeks. Instead, they can put all recyclables into a single can, and those collections will occur weekly.
The collected material will be brought to Omni Recycling of Westbury, which has been accepting Huntington’s separated recyclables, and then taken to Green Stream Recycling in Brookhaven, a joint venture between Omni and Winters Brothers Waste Systems. Green Stream screens, separates and processes the waste to be recycled.
Called “single-stream” recycling, other municipalities who have instituted the policy have reported increases of 25 to 30 percent in the amount of material recycled.
“This is going to eliminate the need to build more resource recovery plants and burn more and more of our solid waste, because we have the capacity here if we only recycle sensibly,” Supervisor Frank P. Petrone said at a December 10 news conference detailing the changes. “This is a win-win all around, and the Town Board is very excited about it.”
At the December 9 Town Board meeting, the Board unanimously approved a change in Town Code to allow for single stream recycling. The Board also approved the agreement with Omni, which will pay the Town $25,000 a year for the waste.
The second measure concerns the proper disposal of electronic waste, such as televisions, computers, computer printers and monitors. For some time, the Town has accepted e-waste at the Town’s Recycling Center, 642 New York Avenue, Huntington, and two years ago began a program of allowing residents to call for curbside pickup. So far this year, the Town has collected 148 tons of e-waste through the curbside pickup program. Both options encouraged residents to voluntarily recycle e-waste.
On January 1, however, a state law takes effect banning the collection of e-waste with regular garbage. At the news conference, Supervisor Petrone said he wanted to let residents know that any e-waste set out with regular garbage will be left at the curb with a sticker informing them of the state law making it illegal to throw e-waste out with regular garbage and letting them know their options for disposal. They include dropping off the e-waste at the Recycling Center, which is open Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m..; calling 351-3239 for a curbside pickup; or taking the e-waste to a participating store (such as Best Buy) or sending it back to the manufacturer.
“Recycling our e-waste and increasing the rate of recycling saves money and saves the environment,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “People want to do the right thing, but we have to give them convenient choices in order to increase their participation.”
Joining Supervisor Petrone and Ms. Esposito at the news conference were Councilman Mark Cuthbertson and Councilwoman Susan A. Berland (Councilman Eugene Cook and Councilwoman Tracey Edwards were unable to attend); Anthony Core, president of Omni; Will Flower, president of Green Stream Recycling; Omar Figueroa, a supervisor at the Best Buy story in South Huntington; and environmental activist Jeff Bartels.