By The Junk Lord · Updated
One plant takes it all
The truck grinds up the street on trash day, the bags disappear, and most of us never give them another thought. In York County, though, they nearly all land in the same spot.
No matter where you live in the county, your hauler delivers your garbage to the York County Resource Recovery Center at 2651 Blackbridge Road in Manchester Township. The York County Solid Waste Authority says all of the county's combustible household waste is managed there.[1][2][3]
So that's the short answer to where York County trash goes. The longer answer explains why your curb has limits, and what your options are once you blow past them.
What the Resource Recovery Center actually does
It's a waste-to-energy plant. It burns municipal solid waste, turning it into ash and electricity, and it runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was designed to handle 1,344 tons of waste a day.[2]
- Burning trash down to ash shrinks its volume by 90 percent.[2]
- The plant generates 36 to 40 megawatts. After the roughly 5 megawatts it uses to run itself, the authority says what's left is enough for about 20,000 homes.[2]
- It started processing York County waste in October 1989. The old county landfill in Hopewell Township quit taking waste in December 1997 and was capped in 1998.[4][5]
- The authority says it runs on disposal fees and electricity sales, not county tax dollars.[4][1]
Who picks it up (not the county)
The Solid Waste Authority is blunt about this: it doesn't collect your garbage, own trash trucks or provide dumpsters. Collection is handled town by town.[1]
Most municipalities contract one hauler for every household. Five townships are listed as private subscription, meaning residents sign up with a hauler themselves, and in Hanover and Wrightsville the borough is listed as the hauler. If you're not sure who serves your street, the authority's advice is to call your municipal office.[6][1]
Those town contracts are where weekly limits come from. The authority's best-practices guide for municipalities writing bid packages suggests capping weekly trash at 3 to 4 bags or one 96-gallon tote.[7]
It's also not a free-for-all on the hauling side. Under the York County Flow Control Ordinance, adopted in August 1989, anyone in the business of collecting and transporting the county's trash or construction and demolition waste has to register with the authority, show its decal on the vehicle, and dump only at a designated disposal site. A resident who isn't regularly in the hauling business and uses a public drop-off can have that registration waived.[8]
Recycling and the other things that skip the burner
Recycling runs on its own track. Pennsylvania's Act 101 of 1988 requires municipalities of 10,000 or more people, and those of 5,000 to 10,000 with more than 300 people per square mile, to run a recycling program and separate leaf waste from the rest of the trash.[9]
That doesn't mean every town is required to. The authority says Act 101 makes recycling mandatory in 18 York County municipalities. Even so, 64 of the county's 72 municipalities have contracted curbside recycling, and about 99 percent of residents can get to curbside or drop-off recycling.[1]
A few other things are kept out of the burner on purpose:
- Leaves. Under Act 101, a resource recovery facility can't accept truckloads made up mostly of leaf waste for processing, other than composting.[9]
- TVs, computers, monitors and peripherals. Pennsylvania has banned them from household trash since January 24, 2013, and resource recovery facilities may not accept them. York County residents can recycle them for free at the center instead.[10][11]
- Refrigerators, freezers and air conditioners. Units left at the center go to a contractor who removes the refrigerant.[1]
- Metal like bed frames and bookshelves, which goes to a local scrap yard, and branches and shrubbery, which become mulch.[12]
When you've got more than the curb will take
Everybody hits the limit sooner or later: a dead recliner, a basement that finally gets emptied, a garage full of somebody else's stuff. Curbside large-item rules vary by town. In York Township, for example, the hauler takes one large item a week, and only if two people can lift it.[13]
York County residents can haul the overflow themselves to the Small Load Drop-Off at the Resource Recovery Center, open weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 8 a.m. to noon. You check in at the scale house first. The authority calls its refuse bunker ideal for anyone with more trash than their hauler will take. A fee applies to trash loads.[12][3][14]
Or you can point and let somebody else carry. Our two-person crew comes into the house, garage or basement, does all the lifting and loading, and sweeps up when the space is clear. Usable pieces go to donation drop-offs. William gives you the price and confirms it before we start.