s of 1 August 2017, New York City’s new recycling rules for businesses are as follows: All businesses in New York City are required to recycle certain materials (metal, glass, plastic) and ensure to their best ability that those recyclable materials are properly handled by their private carter.Inspectors will be randomly visiting businesses in NYC and issuing fines if they find this type of material in your trash.
What is Single Stream Recycling?
- Single Stream recycling is a system in which all paper products, cardboard, rigid plastic containers, metal cans and glass bottles/jars are mixed in one collection container.
- We do the sorting for you at our affiliated facility, Scholes Street Recycling (SSR). The material arrives at SSR, and it is separated through a variety of automated and manual processes for quality assurance.
- Processed material is shipped to industries that use the scrap material to make new products.
Single Stream Recycling makes recycling easy for residents and businesses. To maintain the quality of scrap materials for the industries that buy them, recyclables need to be kept clean and consistent. Single stream bins need to be free of items that contaminate recyclable materials, damage sorting facility equipment, and harm human handlers (such as plastic bags, food waste, wires, and needles). For a complete list of accepted single stream materials, see NYC Guide to Recycling for Businesses.
Here’s how your recyclables are sorted and/or separated off-site:
- Mixed paper, cardboard and film plastic are sorted and baled at SSR.
- Scrap metal and larger rigid plastics are sorted out of the non-recyclable waste by hand.
- Currently, metal, glass and plastic containers are sorted out of the cardboard/paper at SSR by hand and transported to the Sims Recycling facility in Brooklyn. Facility upgrades at SSR scheduled for the 3rd quarter of 2017 are adding additional processing capacity.
- Non-recyclables are baled and transported to landfills for disposal.