Environmental Services
Municipal Recycling Center
The Town has operated a recycling program at this Town Solid Waste Management Facility since the mid 1980's and in 1990 undertook the first major expansion of the recycling program with the construction of a Materials Recycling Facility and instituted a mandatory source separated curbside recycling requirement.
Currently we have both private and public hauling parties providing collection of recyclable materials within the Town. In both the Village of Menands and the Village of Colonie, municipal crews collect source separated materials on a weekly basis. Outside of the village, Town of Colonie residents utilize several different private haulers to collect source separated, dual stream comingled or single stream comingled recyclables. This type of system is called a subscription system that allows the residents and business to select a collection company based upon different collection services that the hauling companies offer and compare the cost for the various services. Each of the Hauling companies are required to accept old newspaper, corrugated cardboard, plastic containers (SPI Code # 1 through #7), metal contains and glass containers. Some Hauling companies accept more that these basic recyclable materials. Town Residents and Businesses may also consider which hauling company to select based upon the comprehensive recycling system a collection company provides.
The Town also operates a Town Residential Recyclables Drop Off Station for residents who wish to bring their own recyclable materials in directly. The Residential Recyclables Drop Off provides roll off container boxes for comingled fibers and comingled containers located at the Division of Environmental Services' site.
A long term implementation schedule for waste reduction, recycling and landfilling has been developed and is generally described in the Division of Environmental Services program schedule.
Due to changing market specifications and demands, and fluctuating quantities of recyclable materials processed through the Town MRF, in 2003 it was determined no longer feasible to operate the MRF and the building was converted to a transfer facility. Recyclable materials are now stored in bulk until shipped to the processing facilities.
In 2007 the Town completed capital improvements to the Residential Recyclables Drop Off Station to provide more convenient access to the recycling containers.