Recycling

Pittsburgh Region

Web resources in recycling for Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania.

General Resources

• Allegheny Couny Health Department Recycling
  Allegheny County Health Department offers a directory of places in Allegheny County which accept various materials for recycling -- from glass containers to polystyrene loose fill. Also lists companies that will haul your recyclables.
  • Recycling Resource Directory
• City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Environmental Services: Recycling
  The Public Works department responsible for recycling posts information for city residents. You can find information on garbage pickup schedules, yard debris, telephone book recycling, fall leaf disposal, appliance dropoff.
• Construction Junction
  Construction Junction is a non-profit retail store specializing in used and surplus building materials located in North Point Breeze. They also have drop off sites for paper, plastics, cardboard, glass, cans, and more. This is a great place for recycling!
• Freecycle: Pittsburgh
  This is a link to the freecycle.org group for Pittsburgh. Do you have something to get rid of? Do you need something and can't pay for it new? Check here.
• Pennsylvania Resources Council:
  PRC is a nonprofit citizens' action organization. Under Programs, Community, they have information on collection sites for hazardous waste in the Pittsburgh area.
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Where to donate your items
  Althought the point of this article from January 2, 2008 was how to get rid of your "stuff", the emphasis is on recycling it.

Appliances

• Appliance Warehouse: Disposal
  Appliance Warehouse is a company specializing in the recycling and resale of used appliances on the South Side (523 Bingham Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203).

Bicycles

• Free Ride
  Free Ride! is a non-profit recycle-a-bike shop that enables people of all ages to obtain, recycle, and maintain bicycles. Located at Construction Junction, Free Ride is a project of Bike Pittsburgh!

Books and Magazines

• Allegheny County Libraries
  Drop off or pick up some used books at library booksales.
• Caliban Bookshop
  A used book store on South Craig Street in Oakland that specializes in Literary First Editions, Fine Arts, Poetry, Exploration & Travel, Americana, Philosophy, General Scholarly, Fine Press, and Leatherbound Editions
• Townsend Booksellers
  Located off of South Craig Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Townsend's offers fine used, rare, out-of-print, scholarly and unusual books in all fields bought & sold.

Clothing and Household Items

• Dress for Success Pittsburgh
  Accepts donations of women's professional clothing to provide the appropriate clothing for disadvantaged women looking for jobs. Works with over 120 organizations.
• Freepeats
  Here you can get gently-used baby, kid, and maternity items like clothing, high chairs, bouncers, swings, bikes, and toys for free from other parents who have finished with them. Or you can get rid of your own stuff. A forum started in Pittsburgh in October 2008.
• Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania
  Information on donating items to Goodwill, what they will accept, including automobiles.
• Light of Life Ministries
  Check their "urgently needed items". Holds an annual coat drive each September to collect gently used coats for the needy. Coats can be dropped off at participating dry cleaners. They also run a thrift store which offers pick up service for donations.
• Salvation Army Western Pennsylvania
  You may donate clothing and household items to the Salvation Army. Included on their website is a Valuation Guide for Donated Items.
• Salvation Army Women's Auxiliary Fabric Fair
  Each April the SA Women's Auxiliary collects and sorts donated fabric, yarn, patterns, kits, craft items, notions and how to books, to sell them at their annual Fabric Fair in the South Park Home Economics Building on Brownsville Road. If you have unused fabric or sewing materials you want to get rid of, contact Marilyn DeHuff at 412-835-3162 for a list of drop off locations.
• Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Council of Pittsburgh
  Accepts donations of vehicles, furniture, clothing, and household items. St. Vincent de Paul has stores in Monroeville, Sharpsburg, Penn Hills, Coraopolis and Butler.

Computers, Televisions, & Electronics

• A greenSpan Computer Recycling, Inc.
  A Monroeville company with a processing plant for recycling analog TVs and computer equipment in Turtle Creek. For drop-offs, call 412-628-2824 for updated hours of operation.
• Best Buy: Recycling
  Consumers can bring up to two (2) units per day, per household, for recycling at any U.S. Best Buy store. Best Buy will accept most consumer electronics, including televisions and monitors up to 32”, computer CPUs and notebooks, small electronics, VCR and DVD players, and phones, as well as accessories such as keyboards, mice, and remotes. A $10 recycling fee per unit will be charged for items with screens but a $10 Best Buy gift card will also be issued. Every U.S. Best Buy store also has free recycling kiosks, just inside the door, for you to drop off inkjet cartridges, batteries, cell phones, CDs/DVDs, PDAs, smartphones and Best Buy gift cards.
• Best Buy Trade-in
  You can TRADE-IN select gently used electronics, including iPods, digital cameras and digital camcorders, for a Best Buy gift card to use towards any purchase at Best Buy.
• eLoop
  eLoop, an Pittsburgh electronics recycling company, has partnered with Construction Junction to provide a permanent electronic equipment collection site in the City of Pittsburgh. Drop off your old analog TV here for a fee.
• Goodwill Computer Works of South Side
  The Computer Recycling Center solicits donations of PCs and related equipment from corporations, small businesses, educational institutions, health care facilities, government agencies and individuals. They test, refurbish what is usable, disassemble nonfunctioning computers for recycling, and sell refurbished computers to the public and to nonprofit groups.
• Second Life Computer Remanufacturing
  Second Life picks up your discarded computers and monitors and re-manufactures them for use in local non-profits and developing nations.
• Staples Recycling
  You can take your used computers, monitors, laptops, and desktop printers, faxes and all–in–ones to any U.S. Staples store and they will accept it for recycling, regardless of whether or not the equipment was purchased at Staples. A recycling fee of $10 per piece of large equipment is charged to cover handling, transport, product disassembly and recycling.

Food and Yard Wastes

• Composting for the Home Gardener
  Resources for turning your food and yard wastes into black gold.

Hazardous Wastes

• Call2Recycle®
  The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) can help you recycle your portable rechargeable batteries. These batteries are commonly found in cordless power tools, cellular and cordless phones, laptop computers, camcorders, digital cameras, and remote control toys. RBRC recycles the following battery chemistries: Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion) and Small Sealed Lead* (Pb). Search for a drop off site by zip code.
• Southwestern Pennsylvania Household Hazardous Waste Task Force
  Maintains hazardous waste collection events. Check here for a date and location for disposing of oil-based paints and paint related products, pesticides, pool chemicals, drain cleaners, and de-greasers and other car care products. They also have a list of recyclers.
• Used Oil Collection Sites
  Don't throw your motor oil down a storm drain. Check here for a recycling site by zip code.

Medical Equipment

• Global Links
  Global Links is a nonprofit organization, headquartered in Pittsburgh, that is dedicated to recovering surplus medical equipment and supplies for use by healthcare institutions serving the poor around the world.

Metals

Of the 130 municipalities in Allegheny County, 80 of them have a curbside collection program and 19 have a drop-off program for glass, metals, and plastics.

• Western Pennsylvania Hospital Foundation: Aluminum Cans for Burned Children
  Sponsors the Aluminum Cans for Burned Children (ACBC) program that sends children with burns to camp, helps children with burns return to school, and helps fund outreach programs to keep children from being burned through aluminum can recycling proceeds and through contributions from generous groups of individuals. Don't toss those aluminum cans!

Paper, Newspaper, Junk Mail

• Construction Junction
  Located in Point Breeze, Construction Junction takes paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and metal.
• PaperRetreiver
  Perhaps you have seen many of the recycling bins that are part of the Abitibi Paper Retriever® Community Recycling Program. They take all kinds of paper, not just newspaper and magazines. Abitibi-Consolidated, a Canadian company, is among the largest recyclers of newspapers and magazines in North America.

Plastic Bags and Plastic

Instead of plastic bags, bring your own reusable bag to the supermarket. Most grocery stores now sell reusable bags (East End Food Co-Op, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Giant Eagle) for about $1. Even the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will sell you a reusable bag for your library books!

• Plastic Loose Fill Council
  The Plastic Loose Fill Council was founded in 1991 to promote the reuse of polystyrene loose fill, commonly known as "packing peanuts". UPS Stores in many communities will accept your packing peanuts.
• PlasticBagReycycling
  An informational site from the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC) about reusing and recycling plastic bags. There is more information at Plastics Resource. Check out their recycled plastic products directory.
• ReusableBags
  Since 2003 ReusableBags.com has been a major force providing facts and news on the global push to reduce plastic and paper bag consumption. They sell reusable grocery and other types of bags from a variety of vendors.

Rainwater

Help rainwater go into the ground, not into storm drains where it can make water and sewage overflow into our rivers. Disconnect your house's downspouts from storm/sewage drains.

• Nine Mile Run Rain Barrels
  The Nine Mile Run watershed at Pittsburgh's eastern border with Edgewood, Swissvale and Wilkinsburg, encourages residents to use rain barrels to catch roof water.
• Build Your Own Rain Barrel
  Here are instructions from several sources.
  • Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Build Your Own Rain Barrel
  • Clean Virginia Waterways
  • Southwest Florida Water Management District (includes a video)
• Rain Barrel Source
  A commercial site with rain barrels from multiple vendors in case you are not handy.

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Pennsylvania

• Penn State Housing: Trash to Treasure
  Hats off to this great recycling initiative at Penn State! At the end of the year, when students are clearing out and throw away usable furniture and clothing, Trash to Treasure allows them to donate it. The items are then sold and the proceeds given to the United Way. Every university should do this.
• Pennsylvania's Recycling Page
  from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Waste Management.
• PROP: The Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania
  Pennsylvania's organization for recycling & solid waste professionals

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United States

• America Recycles Day
  Celebrate November 15th.
• Basel Action Network (BAN)
  BAN works in opposition to toxic trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies, that are exported from rich to poorer countries. Alternatively, it works to ensure national self-sufficiency in waste management through clean production and toxics use reductions.
• Car Recycling: National Kidney Foundation
  Donate your unwanted car to the National Kidney Foundation by calling 1-800-488-CARS.
• EPA: Strategies for Record-Setting Waste Reduction in Multi-Family Dwellings
  This is a brochure from the Environmental Protection Agency encouraging recycling in apartment complexes by pointing out the real cost-savings to the management by decreasing waste-disposal costs.
• Garbage: How can my community reduce waste?
  An Annenberg/CPB Project Exhibit. "If your habits resemble those of average Americans, you generate about 4 pounds of solid trash per day. This adds up to big trouble for the environment."
• Green Burial Council
  Instead of embalming and burial in expensive caskets and vaults, consider a green burial in a wood or cardboard box in a natural area. Read more in "Eternally green: Woodland burials are a natural alternative to an embalmed afterlife", a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from January 30, 2008.
• Reuse Development Organization
  Maintains a national directory of used building material centers (Find a Reuse Center).

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Selected Books

Baird, Lori
Don't Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew, and Reuse to Make Things Last
TX303.B345 2007x
This book is particularly good at giving instructions on how to take care of things so that your appliances, furniture, etc. do not wear out.

Hoffman, John
The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving
q TX303.H64 2007x
Illustrated with cartoons by Ace Backwards, this guided tour of America's back alleys will make you think twice about what you throw away and might even inspire you to dumpster dive!

Jenkins, Joseph C.
The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure
S657.J46 1999
By not disposing of feces and urine through the typical use of a flush toilet, nutrients can be returned to the soil as fertilizer. Eventually we'll have to deal with all the sewage that we produce. See Sewage As Fertilizer.

The McGraw-Hill Recycling Handbook
r TD794.5.M397 2001x
Providing a bridge between recycling experts and the officials charged with developing and running recycling programs and operations, this practical reference offers an overview of recycling, including the current laws that govern recycling, the strategic goals of recycling programs, and the need to boost public awareness of the value of recycling.

Rogers, Heather
Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
HD4483.R64 2005
Americans produce the most waste of any people on Earth, says Rogers, but few of us ever think about where all that trash goes. In this book, Rogers tracks its path from the garbage truck to the landfill, incinerator or beyond. She also blames American corporations for creating this mountain of garbage.

Royte, Elizabeth
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
HD4484.N7 R68 2005
Into our trash cans go dead batteries, dirty diapers, bygone burritos, broken toys, tattered socks, eight-track cassettes, scratched CDs, banana peels... But where do these things go next? In a country that consumes and then casts off more and more, what actually happens to the things we throw away?

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