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

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 station… we 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.

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

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.