Going To The Dump: What Happens at Beacon's Transfer Station/Recycling Center

The town "Dump", now known as City of Beacon Recycling,
or The Transfer Station.

Living next to a neighbor who has lived in Beacon for over 20 years and has a pickup truck, I hear about trips to "The Dump" quite often. In fact, my husband and I have pickup-truck-envy because we would also like a large pickup truck to cart loads of stuff we clean out of our house and yard to The Dump whenever we want to. My other neighbor is a hay-mulching urban gardener in his teeny back yard, and got himself a baby pickup truck to visit The Dump to pickup free dirt and mulch. In my fifth year of living in Beacon, I decided to be a Big Girl and go to The Dump myself to see what it was all about.

First of all, it is no longer called "The Dump", since it is not a static place of trash getting dumped and left behind (or at one point long ago, burned). In fact, when the garbage men come to pick up your trash, the trash gets dealt with by Royal Carting, a company contracted with the City of Beacon, and is not taken to The Dump at all. This spot has been renamed to "The Transfer Station," or the "City of Beacon Recycling Center," depending on which city-issued flyer you are looking at. The sign outside the building reads "City of Beacon Recycling" and the official page for it at the City's website has it named The Transfer Station.

It's quite a busy spot. In fact a whole Richard Scary story with all kinds of bulldozers and conveyer belts could be illustrated about The Transfer Station because of the type of waste that gets repurposed there. Leaf piles and grass clippings get turned into dirt. TVs and electronics have their own special dumpster bin that gets picked up by Royal Carting for a fee that the City of Beacon pays. Royal Carting then takes some of that scrap to AW Scrap Processors on 9D to melt for scrap metal, the money of which is then paid to the City of Beacon, says Highway Superintendent Anthony "Zep" Thomaselli.

A view of the compost pile of leaf clippings in the back, with a bulldozer to turn it.
In the forefront is the dumping pit for furniture.

THE DUMPING CHALLENGE: TAKING THE CHAIR TO THE DUMP!
To see how it all worked, I challenged myself to take our old chair to The Dump aka The Transfer Station. The Transfer Station is located down Dennings Avenue, which is a right turn at the intersection near the basketball courts if you are leaving Beacon and passing the Beacon Dental complex on your left. You'll drive through a residential area, and then keep your eyes peeled for the Transfer Station on your left. I actually drove right past it because I saw a sign that read "City of Beacon Recycling" as pictured below. If you drive past The Transfer Station, you'll dead-end into a parking lot that you've been to before when you wanted to hop onto the walking trail around Dennings Point along the train tracks.

Being that we don't have a pickup truck, fitting the chair into the car was tricky, but I made it. The first step is to drive onto a large scale that is operated by Dave "Zeek" Secor. My first question to Dave was: "Is this The Dump? Am I in the right place?" to which he replied "Yes." Dave then asked me if I had lived in Beacon for a long time, only because old-timers are becoming the only ones still calling it The Dump.

Car on a red scale to be weighed before dumping its trash.

Dave's next question to me was to verify if I'd paid all of my City taxes. Residents of Beacon do get to dump 250 pounds of material free of charge within a date range each year if they have paid their taxes. Anything over 250 pounds for the year will be charged to the resident by the City of Beacon. This includes furniture, TVs, and extra trash that otherwise would have been collected in your trash can. The limit does not include grass clippings and brush, which is free. This year of 2015, the date range is May 19th - September 26th. The reason for the limit is that Beacon does pay Royal Carting to pick up this material, so hundreds of pounds of extra trash from your home or summer "Clean The Shed" project cannot be a total free for all.

Dave "Zeek" Secor on the right, and retired Water Department
employee Ralph Durso who likes to visit old buddies.

Next step is to back up you car and...dump your stuff! The furniture goes into this bin that faces the giant mound of decomposing leaf bags on the left, and dirt on the right that was previously leaf piles and grass clippings. TVs and other things go into another bin.

Get ready to dump!

Here's a video of me actually tipping the chair into the dumpster. And be sure to subscribe to our YouTube playlist, Real Live Scoop!

MARY, MARY QUITE CONTRARY, WHERE DO THOSE GARDEN BAGS GO?
In the Summer, there is a lot of yard cleanup going on, and you may drive past bags of grass clippings and weed pickings left out on the street. And they may sit and sit. That is because in the Summer, there is no official pickup schedule by the City of Beacon to pick up these bags, like there is in the Fall when City of Beacon trucks are picking up leaves from October to the first snowfall, says Thomaselli. "We have so much to do, that we try to collect the grass clippings on rainy days. For the whole month of April, however, we do pick up brush and bags frequently. And in January we pick up Christmas trees." There is a number you can call to let the City of Beacon Recycling know about your grass clippings that need picked up, and that number is 845-831-0932. Otherwise, you can drive your yard waste to City of Beacon Recycling building on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Saturdays within designated hours posted on their website in special biodegradable paper bags, and dumping it is free.

Piles of brush compost (left), mulch (center) and the final stage of dirt (right).

DIRT DESSERT
If you needed a lot of dirt in your back yard to start a new garden, or to make a flower bed deeper at the base of a tree that is otherwise solid roots, then The Transfer Station / City of Beacon Recycling Center is the place to pick up such dirt. Located in the far back of the lot is a very tall mound of dirt that is the result of months and months of decomposing leaves, brush and grass clippings. Those brown bags you see on the side of the road - those all make it to The Transfer Station and get dumped into the tall pile of biodegradable bags, turned a bunch of times, and then transferred to a giant sifter to sift out most trash that accidentally made it into the leaf bags. However, collecting the dirt has become so popular, that the dirt itself is getting rare because it is in high demand from residents and  local farms and organizations like Green Teen who take it by the truck-load to plant their garden initiatives all over town, including at Tito's and at South Avenue Elementary School.

So as you are out weeding your flower beds and gardens, and mowing the lawn, you can feel like you are doing an even better job, and giving back to your fellow neighbors, because those clippings can turn into golden dirt for others! If you are feeling extra proud of what you just dumped, take a picture of it and tag us on Instagram!