About Us

In January 2008, the Town of North Hempstead announced its initiative to partner with public schools within the Town on a comprehensive recycling program. 

As the lead agency in local solid waste management planning, the Town of North Hempstead recognized the potential of recycling to prevent large amounts of solid waste from entering the landfills and saving significant taxpayer dollars. 

 To date, North Hempstead has partnered with ALL of the Town’s 11 school districts and has supplied every single classroom and office in each participating district with recycling bins. The Town has also committed to carting all the recyclables collected in a total of 60 buildings. With more than 46,000 students participating, the recycling program reaps an average of 25 tons of paper and 6 tons of co-mingled recyclables a month.

Since the School Recycling Partnership Program was instituted in the Town of North Hempstead, the results have been:

• Recycled over 1,900 tons of paper
• Recycled over 456 tons of comingled (plastic, aluminum, glass)
• Collected over 150 tons of electronic waste 
• Winner of the 2009 NYS Environmental Excellence Award 
• Instituted the Annual Recycled Artwork Contest – 2009 
• Instituted the Town of North Hempstead Earth Day Video Contest - 2009 
  º Why Do You Recycle? – 2009 & 2010 
  º “Refill Not Landfill” - 2011 
  º “Erase E-waste” - 2012 
  º “Plastic Ain’t My Bag!” - 2013 
  º “Slow the Flow! Save H20!” - 2014 
  
• Instituted the Composting Program of North Hempstead - 2011 
• Instituted the Recycle the Rain Program of North Hempstead - 2012 
• Began Recycling Outside of the classroom – Installed recycling bins on outdoor High School playing fields - 2012 

Implementation of the School Recycling Partnership Program in our schools teaches an invaluable life lesson to the youth who will eventually become the stewards of our community and our precious environment. Not only are they likely to pass on the practice of recycling to their peers and members of their household but they will become lifelong advocates for greening our environment. 

 2016 School Recycling Partnership Program Plan