Does Styrofoam Belong In Your New York Recycling Bins?

You have Styrofoam and you are going to throw it away, do you put it in the recycling container, or do you put it into the regular garbage container? This is a tricky question because you want to do the right thing for the environment, but you also don't want to make the mistake of ticking the people off at the garbage company?

What do you do? Heck, there are triangles with numbers on some of the foam, so that means it is recyclable, right? So does it go in the recycling bin? No, it doesn't.

What do you do with the Styrofoam? Recycle or toss?

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The right answer is complicated. Yes, you should recycle the foam, but your garbage company often won't take it. In some cases, your garbage company might even give you a little bit of a fine for including it in the recycling. There are also some cities and towns, that if they see you have any (not just foam, but also plastic bags) non-acceptable items (Port Jervis NY) they will not pick up your items.

Where can you take the Styrofoam to get recycled? Will you be charged?

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There are a few places that will take the foam for recycling. Most off these places will not charge you to recycle the foam. The hard part for you is that you (to make it worth the effort) will need to gather your foam items and wait until you have enough to make a trip to the recycler worth it.

What do you do about those plastic bags? The ones you used to get at the grocery.

Believe it or not, you can take them back to the grocery store. Every grocery store in New York State has a bin that you can put those plastic bags into be recycled.

What about pizza boxes or containers (metal or foam ones) can they be recycled?

If there is food on them, or they are foam, they cannot be recycled. You should toss those in the regular garbage.

Has your garbage company or town ever not picked up your items because they felt you were in violation of how they want you to recycle? Share your experience with us!

Here is a list of things that you should never recycle, how many of them have you tried to recycle?

While many people already know that recycling is good for the environment, they may actually be putting the wrong things in their recycling bins. Here are 12 items that most people think are recycled, but are usually just discarded into the trash at the transfer station.

Here is a playground made out of recycled materials

The new recreation spot for kids is located at Brookhaven Park & Golf Course on Alpine Road in Greenfield. All of the equipment is made from plastic, textiles, food packaging and fishing nets recovered from the ocean.