SHEFFIELD — Despite this past year’s challenges, Sheffield residents have continued their impressive commitments to recycling, reusing, and repurposing items and keeping them out of landfills.
Fortunately, items which were not accepted for recycling or reuse during the early-mid months of the pandemic, such as beer cans, furniture, clothing, and household items, are being accepted again and some second-hand or reuse stores have been overwhelmed with donations. The transfer station’s Swap Shop isn’t open yet, but we’re keeping tabs on the governor’s directives.
I applaud everyone who’s part of our town’s collective commitment to recycling and reuse; you save money, support jobs, reduce our solid waste footprint, and make smart environmental choices. Your actions and decisions become more important each year as all Massachusetts landfills are scheduled to close in 2030. It’s not that many years until we must have ZERO solid waste.
In 2020 and to date in 2021, several new programs have been implemented at the transfer station, all of which have been well received:
- The bulky waste bin is available every day the transfer station is open.
- A mattress recycling bin is available on the first Sunday of each month.
- Coupons for these two programs are included in the transfer station fee and additional coupons may be purchased through the Town Administrator’s Office or online.
- Two textile recycling, recovery, and reuse collection boxes are next to the Swap Shop, where donations of new, used, torn, or past-their-prime clothing, textiles, shoes, accessories, and other items find new uses and homes as Apparel Impact processes these donations. Items need to be clean, dry, and odor- and mold-free and in plastic or paper bags, which are also recycled.
- The successful home compost bin discounted program will be available again in May. Currently, we’re looking into a Bulky Rigid Plastic program for plastic items that can’t be currently recycled, such as plastic hangers, flowerpots, large shelving units, turtle pools, as well as a home food diversion program where you would bring your food waste to the Transfer Station for collection and recycling by a business into compost. More information to follow. As always, thank you, Sheffield!
