Recycling

Photos courtesy BradMandell The Rochester area is an active recycling community with returnable bottles and cans, curbside paper and metal recycling collection, and numerous other recycling activities. See our Rochester Environmental Issues

Bottles/Cans/Plastic - Residential - Electronics - Bulk/Other

Bottles, Cans, and Plastic Bags

Under New York State's Returnable Container Act (Bottle Bill) recyclers can redeem returnable bottles and cans at local retailers, such as Wegmans, and redemption facilities.


Cans and plastic bottles are fed through automated machines that read the container's barcode, reject any non-returnable containers, and issue a ticket receipt for the total containers entered at the machine. Bottles are returned at an associated counter near the automated machines. Visitors from outside the Rochester area, especially children, may be interested and amused by the process.


Many of these redemption areas also provide containers for shoppers to recycle plastic bags, such as those used in the grocery store. Some retailers are now promoting reusable shopping bags as an alternative to the plastic bag.

Residential Recycling

The mainstay for residential recycling in the Rochester area is the Monroe County Residential Recycling "Blue Box" program.

Materials which can be placed into the provided blue bins for this curbside recycling program include


• metal cans and lids
  

• glass bottles and jars
  

• Number 1 and Number 2 plastic jugs and containers
  

• newspapers
  

• a wide variety of cardboard and other paper products
  

  See the link for the program above for details
  

Electronic waste

Although at the time of this writing (June 2008) residential generators in New York are allowed to dispose of electronic waste through the normal curbside garbage pickup programs, this may change, and in any case is not a responsible option to take (and is illegal for business and institutional waste generators) Electronic waste contain a number of materials that can be readily recycled (copper, iron, plastics) and that are otherwise environmentally problematic (lead). A number of alternative options to landfilling electronic waste are available.


• Rochester Computer aka Regional Computer Recycling & Recovery accepts residential electronic waste in cooperation with a number of computer stores throughout the area. See their eWaste Partners web site for details.
  

• Maven Technologies has sponsored a number of events with local municipalities featuring free drop off days.
  

• Sunnking in Brockport accepts most electronic waste for free, although they charge for cathode ray tubes.
  

• These and a number of other Computer Stores accept some computer equipment to sell for re-use.

See also the Monroe County Electronics Recycling page.

Bulk materials and other recycling

The website for Genesee Scrap indicates they will buy retail scrap from "All customers who deliver scrap directly to our business in the course of their business or others engaged in home tear-outs, remodeling, peddlers, and contractors providing any kind of industrial or obsolete scrap."

A web search for "rochester NY recycling" indicates these and other options.

Bottles/Cans/Plastic - Residential - Electronics - Bulk/Other

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