Rockville Centre going ever greener

Green is the hottest color in Rockville Centre this holiday season, as the village inches closer and closer to rolling out its improvements to recycling.

Emilio Grillo, the village board’s liaison to the Department of Public Works, and Superintendent of Public Works Harry Weed exhibited two new residential recycling containers at the board meeting on Dec. 9, while updating residents on future improvements.

“This has been a work in progress for quite some time,” said Grillo. “And through the work of the board, and specifically Harry Weed, we finally are making significant progress.”

For starters, the village intends to purchase two types of bins in bulk. The first, 23-gallon rectangular blue bins, will replace the bins currently used for bottles and cans, and provides significantly more room for plastic recyclables. The second, green bins closer in size to the old bins, will serve as a paper and cardboard recycling bins, and come with two detachable bungee cords across the top, to help secure their contents.

“So the days of neighbors complaining, ‘Hey, your garbage is on my front lawn,’ are hopefully over,” Grillo joked.

The bins are on order, and cost the village $7,310 in initial expenses, but village spokeswoman Julie Grilli says the long-term effects of the purchase — helping residents to recycle more — will move recyclables out of the waste stream and reduce village garbage disposal costs.

Grillo, who has been working on this project since his appointment as DPW liaison in July, says these improvements are something that Rockville Centre has needed for a long time.

“I think it’s really kind of a no-brainer,” he said. “It’s something that benefits the entire community.”

Grillo said he and Weed are looking into bins for downtown recycling, and also intend to help businesses find ways to recycle more. In addition, they hope to jump-start an electronics recycling program. Initial costs have yet to be determined, but once in place, the program would allow residents to discard old computers, printers and hard drives at the DPW, where they would be destroyed by a recycling company to prevent divulging private information. Grillo noted that the village would be paid by the pound for such refuse, benefitting taxpayers in the long run.

“I think, obviously, it’s our intention to make the village as green as possible, and working with Harry, the mayor, and the board, this really is confirmation of our intention to do that,” said Grillo. “The only issue right now is a matter of timing. In order to implement a program like this, it does take a bit of time.”