In an effort to encourage the best option for bagging small brush, Town of Brookhaven Officials will make brown paper brush bags available to residents at cost in time for the December 4th Brush Collection Week. Paper yard waste bags are currently available at most grocery, hardware, and home supply stores and will be available from the Town of Brookhaven Department of Waste Management beginning November 21st.
Unlike the larger pieces of brush that can be easily bundled and tied for curbside collection, small pieces of brush and twigs must be contained in cans or bags.
Brush placed at the curb for recycling is brought to the Town Landfill where it is run through a chipper and made available to residents as wood chips for landscaping and mulching their home gardens and lawns. As the quality of chips is dependent on the way we package brush at the curb, the best way to bag small brush, if residents must bag it at all, is in paper. Paper bags break down easily in the chipper and add no contamination to the wood chips.
Plastic bags are troublesome and labor intensive for the chipping process. Plastic bags must be separated from the load and emptied by hand before the brush can be put through the chipper. The bags then must be discarded as garbage. The plastic that makes it through the process compromises the efficiency of the chipper and degrades the quality of the wood chips.
The bags will sell for $ 0.28 apiece and will be sold in lots of ten. Residents will be able to purchase bags at the Town of Brookhaven Department of Waste Management Office at Town Hall, One Independence Hill, Farmingville, and at the Town Landfill on Horseblock Road in Yaphank. For further information, please contact the Department of Waste Management at 451-6446.
Free wood chips are available to residents for use in landscaping and garden projects. Wood chips can be picked up at the Town Landfill in Yaphank, at the Manorville Compost Site on Paper Mill Road in Manorville, and at the Holtsville Ecology Site on Buckley Road in Holtsville.