Municipal programs for waste management have been in place in communities in Suffolk County for decades. Major changes occurred in these programs in the 1980s and 1990s due to the Long Island Landfill Law (passed in 1983) and increases in environmental awareness. These changes led to recycling and yard waste composting programs, and waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration replaced landfilling as the dominant disposal technology. Management of municipal programs remains a function of local government, despite State efforts (in the late-1980s) and western Town initiatives (in the 1990s) to organize operations on a wider, inter-municipal basis. State regulations recognize Towns as the basic unit for waste management in Suffolk County, but some villages have maintained considerable operational autonomy in four of the western five Towns (Babylon, Brookhaven, Huntington, and Islip).The complexity of the resulting matrices of services do not approach those found in Nassau County, but can be complicated in some instances, nonetheless. Here we report on the specific ways municipalities in Suffolk County offer waste management programs, and the facilities they use to conduct these operations.
