Residents lined up early Saturday morning along Morris Avenue, some arriving before 8 a.m., to safely dispose of household hazardous waste during Glen Cove’s semiannual STOP program and paper shredding event, held in partnership with Winters Bros..
Hosted at the city’s transfer station, the event gave residents an opportunity to discard items that cannot be placed in regular garbage, including paint cans, propane tanks, gasoline, batteries and cleaning fluids.
“It’s very important. We’ve been doing it for quite a while now,” said Ralph Comitino, president of the Glen Cove Civil Service Employees Association and a member of the city’s Department of Public Works. “If you throw it out in the regular garbage, it’s not being disposed the right way. It’s going to a landfill, which causes problems.”
Comitino emphasized that improperly discarded materials pose serious risks not only to the environment, but also to sanitation workers. Items like lithium batteries and pressurized containers can ignite or explode when compacted in garbage trucks — something the city has experienced firsthand.
“We had a garbage truck on fire in the back,” he said, recalling an incident last year that required emergency response from the fire department.
Such dangers are why sanitation crews are prohibited from collecting hazardous materials during routine pickup. When illegal items are found, the city leaves them behind with a notice instructing residents to dispose of them properly through programs like STOP.
“You’re risking the life of our men by doing something that you don’t have to do,” Comitino said.
The STOP program, held twice a year in partnership with the city, is designed to prevent those risks while offering a convenient, centralized solution for residents unsure how to handle hazardous waste.
“It’s an opportunity for residents to take hazardous materials and get rid of them properly,” said Dan Schaefer, manager of public affairs for Winters Bros. “We want to keep any hazardous or dangerous materials out of our waste stream.”
Schaefer said the company operates about 13 sites across Long Island, including 12 transfer stations — one in Glen Cove — and a materials recycling facility in Brookhaven that processes recyclables for reuse.
“A transfer station is handling waste,” he said, explaining that facilities process municipal solid waste and construction debris, while recycling centers handle materials that can be repurposed.
Hazardous materials, he added, create risks if they enter that system.
For Christine Jenkins of the company’s customer experience team, the event reflects a broader commitment to environmental responsibility and accessibility.
“We worry about the environment, and we want to make sure that we give the community the opportunity to dispose of these things properly,” Jenkins said.
She added that the program simplifies disposal for residents who might otherwise leave items at the curb without knowing how to handle them.
“We do this for the ease of the community, so that way they can get rid of the stuff responsibly,” she said.
The response from residents has been strong, with steady traffic throughout the morning. Some participants even made multiple trips after learning more about what materials were accepted.
“The community loves it,” Jenkins said. “They ask if they can come back. People have been here twice already today.”
Beyond safe disposal, Schaefer said the larger goal is reducing waste overall. According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the average New Yorker produces about five pounds of trash per day — a figure that presents challenges on Long Island, where landfill space is limited and transporting waste off the island strains infrastructure.
