Frequently Asked Questions

The Town of Manchester provides curbside collection services to all single family homes in the Town, as well as multi-family buildings that have up to four (4) individual dwelling units for trash, recycling, yardwaste and bulky waste.

If you live in an apartment or condominium and do not have access to the Town's curbside recycling collection, you can still recycle at the Town's Transfer Station. The Transfer Station accepts all of the same recyclable materials that are collected in the Blue Recycling Carts.

• Click here for a list of recyclable materials. All recycling can now be placed loose into the recycling cart. We do ask that you follow a few simple guidelines. More information on how to prepare recyclable materials is available here(PDF, 235KB).
• Please continue to flatten cardboard and paperboard/boxboard to preserve space inside the cart.
• Please rinse all food and beverage containers to remove food residues. Thorough washing is not required.
• Please do not put any plastic bags into the recycling cart, this includes any plastic liners from items such as cereal and other food packaging.
• All other fiber should remain loose, including junk mail, office paper, newspaper and inserts, magazines and catalogs, paperboard/boxboard, cardboard, note cards and folders. As of 1/1/2018, Shredded paper is no longer recyclable due to changes in recycling markets and revised acceptability guidelines from RecycleCT. Please click here on RecycleCT to learn more about the latest guidelines for recycling.

YES! Click here to learn more about the Single-Stream Recycling recovery process.

Click here for a schedule of recycling routes, which allows you to search by your street address. A calendar with the recycling schedule will also be delivered with your Blue Recycling Cart. Your recycling collection will continue to be the same day as your trash collection, it will just be every other week.

The Town of Manchester currently pays Connecticut's Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (CT MIRA) $95 per ton for each of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), otherwise known as garbage/trash/rubbish, that is sent to their Hartford Waste to Energy Plant for incineration. Town MSW is no longer landfilled at the Town's Landfill and has not been 1/1/2000. For each ton of recyclable materials that we send to a recycling plant, we save the $90 if we had disposed of the recyclables as trash, plus we receive a rebate on recycling from Murphy Road Recycing of $5.00 per ton. In summary, each ton of material that is recycled has a net effect of a cost avoidance savings of $90.00 per ton.

You can recycle the items listed here at the Transfer Station. The Manchester Transfer Station is open Tuesday through Saturdays, 7:15am to 2:30pm. Proof of Residency is required.

• Manchester Transfer Station - 311 Olcott Street, Manchester, CT 06040

Aseptic packaging, commonly known as a 'drink box', is a combination of paper, plastic, and aluminum. This multi-layer package locks out light and air, seals in nutrients and flavor, and allows its contents to remain un-refrigerated for months. In addition to a drink box, milk and juice cartons are also considered aseptic. Also known as gable-topped cartons, they are often a half-gallon in size, but there are smaller and larger sizes as well.

No. The blue carts are only for recycling only. Please place recyclable materials loose into the Blue Recycling Cart, no plastic bags please. Trash should be placed in your Green Trash Cart and yard-waste should be bagged in a Brown Kraft Bag for curbside collection. Yard-waste bags are sold by the Town and available at the Transfer Station/Landfill and Town Hall, as well as several local retailers and grocery stores.

No. The Town of Manchester does not have any paper shredding services available. The Town has identified the following local paper shredding resources:

• MARC Inc. Paper Shredding Services - click here(PDF, 264KB)
• Manchester Eighth Utilities District Annual ShredFest (every May)

Click here for a link to the Connecticut DEP's "What Do I Do With...?" webpage, a comprehensive listing of recycling resources by product/material type.

Unfortunately, Styrofoam is not acceptable for recycling through the curbside program. If you have styrofoam packing peanuts, these may be able to reused by a UPS Store. Please call the store for additional details. For curbside disposal, Styrofoam should be placed in the Green Trash Cart. Learn more here by visiting the plastic loose-fill recycling council. http://www.loosefillpackaging.com/

Yes, If you reside in a Manchester apartment or condominium and do not have access to the Town's curbside recycling collection, you can still recycle at the Town's Transfer Station. The Transfer Station accepts all of the same recyclable materials that are collected in the Blue Recycling Carts.

Thoroughly rinse and dry your recyclables before putting them in you bin.

You should not put your pizza boxes in the recycling bin. This is because the cheese, grease, and food bits that get stuck on the box will contaminate other items in your recycling bin and make it all unusable. However, if the top part of your pizza box is clean and free of grease, you can rip this part off and recycle it.

Plastic bottles with or without the caps attached are acceptable. However, loose plastic bottle caps are not recyclable. Metal lids from cans and bottles are accepted.

Alkaline and lithium batteries, televisions, monitors, computers, computer components, laptops, UPS, power cords, keyboards, mice, speakers, routers, docking stations, modems, printers, copiers, fax machines, toner/ink cartridges, stereo equipment, Blu-Ray players, DVD players, VCR's, cable boxes, telephones, cell phones, answering machines, gaming consoles, cameras, remote controls, typewriters

Fire alarms, thermostats, equipment containing gas or oil, putrescible items