Pennsylvania and Honey Brook Township regulations require all residential, commercial, institutional and municipal properties to separate recyclable materials from their waste and have it properly collected and processed.
Residential collection
Recyclable materials shall be provided at least once each week by your contracted trash collector. Items to be recycled by all residential units including mobile home parks and apartments include Glass containers, Cans. Plastics: No. 1 to No. 5 and No. 7, Paper: newspaper, books, catalogs, magazines, junk mail, paper, envelopes, and Cardboard boxes and containers. Check with your collector to learn whether additional items may be recycled.
Leaf and Yard Waste – Your trash collector is required to collect leaf and yard waste at least once in the Spring and twice during the months of September through December. Check with your hauler for their schedule. You also have the option of disposing leaf waste by taking it to the Chester County Lanchester Landfill Composting Site.
Commercial, industrial and institutional property owners / operators plus the sponsor of any community special event or other activity shall at a minimum separate all of the items required of residents listed above plus high-grade office paper and corrugated cardboard.
These materials may be stored until collected. The property owner / operator shall annually provide written documentation to the Township of the types of materials and the total tons of materials that were recycled. This documentation is due no later than the end of January for the prior calendar year.
How Are We Doing as a Municipality?
- Tonnage of recycling collected in 2023 (eligible for performance grant): data still being collected
- Tonnage of recycling collected in 2022 (eligible for performance grant): 2,184.79
- Tonnage of recycling collected in 2021 (eligible for performance grant): 1,900.6
When In Doubt, Throw It Out!
Please, please throw it out! That may not be the message you want to hear near Earth Day, but the truth is “too zealous recyclers have contaminated the recyclables with trash.” They are ruining the ability to market the material nationwide. Chester County residents are great recyclers, but shouldn’t be tempted to be too passionate putting items in the bin that do not belong and “trashing” the recyclables. Properly prepared and collected recyclables are valued commodities sold on a global market. When too many non-recyclables (trash) are mixed in with the recyclables it all becomes trash, because it is too costly to separate and requires disposal at a landfill. Meanwhile, too much money has been spent on collection, transportation and processing material that wasn’t worth collecting in the first place.
Scrap metal, hangers, pieces of rope or hose, pieces of wood, yard waste and children’s toys are just a few of the items that “contaminate” the recyclables. Scrap metal may be taken to a scrap dealer, yard waste should be composted, and reusable children’s toys may be donated or thrown away if broken. Do not put them in the recycling bins.
Plastic bags present another problem. Recyclables should never be put in plastic bags. Plastic bags are not recyclable in curbside programs. They jam the source separating equipment at recycling facilities. Plastic shopping bags can be returned to your local grocery store and plastic trash bags should be used for trash only not recyclables.
Most curbside programs in Chester County collect mixed paper, flattened corrugated cardboard cut down to 18” x 24”, glass bottles and jars, steel and aluminum cans, plastic bottles and containers #1-5 plus 7. Our programs also collect clean aluminum foil and pie tins and empty steel aerosol cans. No Styrofoam, polystyrene, foam. Everything else should be thrown away and that’s okay. Only plastic containers and bottles with recycling symbols can be recycled. If there is no recycling symbol, throw it out. Most recyclables will come from the kitchen or the mail as paper or corrugated cardboard. If you really want to do something positive for the planet, do it right. If in doubt, throw it out!