Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Recycling Laws and Regulations

Recycling has been mandatory in Monroe County for residents and businesses/institutions since 1992. Copies of the law and regulations are provided here for reference.

The law states, in general, that residents must recycle steel, aluminum, glass (clear, green, and brown only), plastic (numbers 1 and 2 only) and paper (gable-top cartons/drink boxes) food and beverage containers. Empty steel aerosol cans (no pesticides or spray paint) may also be recycled. Residents must also recycle newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard. Large appliances are also required to be recycled—this is usually done by your garbage hauler.

Only the containers listed above are accepted for recycling. Although not required by law, additional paper materials may be recycled. The Monroe County Recycling Center is now accepting all clean paper from haulers for recycling.

Businesses, Institutions (Schools/Colleges) and Industries must recycle corrugated cardboard and high-grade (office) paper. Businesses and institutions that have cafeteria-type services and all restaurants must recycle the above listed containers.

Download the Monroe County Recycling Laws (113k PDF).

Download the Monroe County Recycling Regulations (114k PDF).

Learn More About the DES Recycling Center

Recycling Drop-Off Center

All residents and businesses in Monroe County are required to recycle. The county has one recycling drop-off location (always open) for residents without curbside recyclable pick-up. Only those items that are accepted in the curbside recycling program can be dropped off. For a list items that county residents may bring to the drop-off center see the Residential Recycling. No garbage will be accepted.

Several towns/villages operate their own recycling drop-off centers. Contact your municipality’s public works/highway department to see if they offer this service.

The Monroe County Recycling Drop-off Center is located in the former Iola Campus across the street from Monroe Community Hospital:

444 East Henrietta Road
Rochester, New York 14620

From the South:

Take 390 North to East Henrietta Road exit 16B (MCC exit), make a right (north) off exit, go over the canal bridge, first right into Rochester Operations Center (ROC) complex, right at stop sign, follow signs to drop-off area.

From the North:

Take 390 South to East Henrietta Road exit 16B (MCC exit), make a left (north) off exit, go over the canal bridge, first right into Rochester Operations Center (ROC) complex, right at stop sign, follow signs to drop-off area.

Materials Exchange

The Western New York Materials Exchange (MAT-EX)

Western New York Materials Exchange (MAT-EX) is an opportunity for businesses to exchange unwanted/unusable products that would otherwise end up in a landfill. The MAT-EX website also allows businesses to locate free/inexpensive materials that can be used in daily business operations. Logon to MAT-EX and see what is available for your business and add materials to the MAT-EX listing.

MAT-EX involves businesses in twenty-one counties of Western/Central New York (Genesee, Livingston, Wyoming, Erie, Allegany, Steuben, Chautauqua, Monroe, Seneca, Tompkins, Orleans, Cattaraugus, Broome, Cayuga, and Tioga), Niagara Consortium, and the Western Finger Lakes and Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authorities.

Learn more at the Western New York Materials Exchange website.

Recycling Center Upgrades

County Marks America Recycles Day with Improvements at Recycling Center

State Grant Allows for Expansion of Paper Recycling

In recognition of America Recycles Day (November 15, 2004), Monroe County announced the completion of a two-year, $1.6 million project to upgrade the Monroe County Recycling Center. The equipment improvements will allow increased efficiency and enhanced recycling for the community.

America Recycles Day is a national campaign to increase recycling participation and awareness—and was the perfect time to announce the completion of this important recycling project. The Recycling Center’s equipment was over 12 years old and has taken a lot of wear. The county took advantage of a state grant to optimize and expand the recycling program.

In 2002, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (NYSDEC) Municipal Waste Reduction and Recycling Program awarded the county a 50 percent matching grant (or about $780,000) for the upgrades. The project replaced weigh scales and the container sorting line. It also added a mixed paper sorting screen and a second baler.

The new equipment has allowed the county to expand its paper recycling program from accepting just a few paper items, to accepting all clean paper.

The Recycling Center currently receives about 175 tons of curbside recyclable material per day (70 percent paper). Metro Waste Paper Recovery, U.S., Inc. operates the facility under a ten-year agreement that nets the county about $250,000 per year. Metro is responsible for all operating and revenue risks and is currently paying the City of Rochester and other area waste haulers $8-12 per ton for paper (depending on the market). The enhanced paper recycling program is not only a financial incentive to the haulers, but also an operational one, as it allows garbage trucks to remain on their routes longer, fill less quickly and avoid landfill tipping fees.

How Are Curbside “Blue Box” Recyclables Processed?

The Recycling Facility is designed to efficiently sort recyclable materials. The design of the facility is simple. Two large conveyors (one for paper and one for containers) move materials to various platforms where mechanical or hand sorting directs each type of recyclable material to a baler (paper, plastic, aluminum, steel) or to an outside storage bunker (glass).

Weigh-in

Recycling trucks enter at Lee Road and stop on large scales so the load of recyclables can be weighed.

Paper Side

• Enter and Dump Paper: Paper materials are unloaded onto the floor. Front-load tractor operators then push piles of paper onto a below-grade level conveyor.
• Hand Sorting: The conveyor brings paper up to an elevated platform where up to six people work on separating everything but newsprint from the line. As the conveyor moves along, employees pick out magazines, phone books, cardboard, etc., from the line by hand and deposit them into their respective bins. Piles of sorted paper products accumulate on the ground floor below.
• Newsprint Goes to the Baler: At the end of the paper conveyor, clean newsprint falls into a large holding bin. A conveyor then dumps newsprint onto a long conveyor that leads to the baler. Approximately 85 percent of the paper processed is newsprint.

Sorting Piles: When piles of magazines, phone books, containers, etc., accumulate under the platform in the sorting bins, a bucket loader will push them onto the conveyor that goes to the baler.

Container Side

• Unloading Cans, Glass and Plastic: After unloading paper, the truck moves to the container conveyor line that will separate these recyclables.
• Magnetic Separation: The mixed recyclables travel up the conveyor and go through a magnetic separator that pulls the steel (tin) cans from the rest of the recyclable containers and drops them to a bin below.
• Blow Off and Screen Smaller Materials: The container line moves through an air “knife” to blow off plastic, sending it to its own separation line, other containers are hand-sorted. Small mixed-color broken glass falls through a screen, is crushed in a grinder, and goes to a separate outdoor bin.
• The Glass Line: After the other containers are removed, all that remains on the line are larger broken, or unbroken, glass bottles. The main line is clear glass, and as it moves by, sorters hand-separate out the brown and green glass and move it to separate conveyers. Each of these lines empties to a separate outdoor bin. Front load tractors periodically empty these bins into trucks that take the containers to the glass plant.

Fluffer and Baler

Depending on the type of material to be compressed, it is fluffed as necessary and then banded with wire to produce a 3' x 4' x 5' bale. Bales are moved by forklift to storage or tractor-trailers for shipping.

Where do the recyclables go and what are they used for?

The recyclables are marketed to various companies and ultimately sold to the company willing to pay the highest price. Bales of recyclables are loaded on tractor-trailers and trucked to companies that process them into new products. The market for recyclables is in a constant state of fluctuation and the price per ton of recyclables can change daily.

Following are examples of where some recyclables go and what they are used for: