Sanitary District No. 1, one of five independent sanitary districts within the Town of Hempstead Sanitary District No. 1 provides municipal solid waste collection, recycling, transfer and disposal services to well over 50,000 residents and various commercial and institutional properties in the Villages of Cedarhurst, Hewlett, Hewlett Bay Park, Hewlett Harbor, Hewlett Neck, Inwood, Lawrence, Woodmere, Woodsburgh and portions of the unincorporated areas of Lynbrook and Green Acres. The area served by the District is a diverse community of high and low-density residential homes as well as small businesses, institutional uses, and other commercial establishments. The District’s 100+ full-time employees collect and process approximately 39,000 tons of solid waste per year, providing rear-yard collection service to all residents other than those residing in apartment buildings. Two garbage collections are provided to each residence each week, and recyclable materials are collected on alternating Wednesdays. All of the solid waste collected passes through the District’s Materials Recovery Facility, where recyclable materials including newspapers, mixed paper, corrugated boxes, bottles, cans, metals, mixed plastics and wood are manually and mechanically separated from the waste stream for subsequent processing and marketing. Special pickups for bulky items (furniture, appliances, etc.) are provided at the resident’s request. Refrigerators and air conditioners are recycled separately through a private contractor. Rubbish debris is also brought to the facility by District vehicles and commercial vendors operating within the District boundaries. These waste materials are also sorted for recyclables, recovering materials such as metals, mixed plastics and wood. Leaf and yard waste is brought to the District site and stored separately from the solid waste. This material is transferred off-site by a private company, under contract to the District, for further processing and recycling by composting. Sanitary District 1 Board Sanitary District No. 1 was established by resolution of the Hempstead Town Board on January 22, 1929. Throughout the early decades of its operation, collection vehicles transported refuse to the Bay Boulevard site to be burned in the District’s brick-lined open-pit incinerator. In 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established and Congress passed the Clean Air Act calling for the EPA to research and develop national air quality standards. As these regulations developed, it became more difficult for the District’s incinerator to meet the new, more stringent standards and the decision was made by the District’s Board of Commissioners to cease operation of the incinerator. The District’s tipping hall was then converted into a transfer station. In this facility, waste from the individual collection vehicles was loaded into larger transport vehicles for disposal off-site in conjunction with the Town of Hempstead. In 1995, the District constructed a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) on the site of the old incinerator directly behind the tipping hall. This facility uses mechanical and manual means to separate recyclable material from the waste stream prior to disposal of the non-recyclable waste. Materials recovered in the MRF for recycling include various grades of paper, corrugated cardboard, plastics (various), metals (various) and wood. Leaf and yard waste is handled in a different area of the District’s property, where it is loaded into transfer trailers for hauling to an off-site processing and composting facility.