Recycle Santa Fe

SFSWMA is committed to be an innovative, responsive, and integrated solid waste organization that provides a safe, cost-efficient and environmentally-sound management of solid waste generated for its customers in Santa Fe County while educating the public in the importance of waste diversion programs including waste reduction, recycling, composting, and special waste.The Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency operates Caja del Rio Landfill and Buckman Road Recycling & Transfer Station (BuRRT). The Agency works with the City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County to help Santa Fe rethink their waste and reduce the impact on our environment.

The Agency is committed to be an innovative, responsive, and integrated solid waste organization that provides a safe, cost-efficient and environmentally-sound management of solid waste generated for its customers in Santa Fe County while educating the public in the importance of waste diversion programs including waste reduction, recycling, composting, and special waste.

History

The Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency (SFSWMA) was formed in 1995, under the terms of the New Mexico Joint Powers Agreements Act, NMSA 1978 Sections 11-1-1- through 11-1-7, by a Joint Powers Agreement executed by the City of Santa Fe and the County of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Agreement delegated the Agency the power to plan for, operate, construct, maintain, repair, replace or expand the Caja del Rio Landfill and ultimately the Buckman Road Recycling & Transfer Station (BuRRT).

Caja del Rio Landfill
The three parties, City, County and the Agency, each committed significant financial resources to the development of this new regional landfill. To site, permit and construct the Caja del Rio Landfill cost $18 million in 1996, with each party committing $6 million to the project. This cost included the acquisition of 640 acres of land, all structures at the Caja del Rio Landfill site as well as the construction of Cell #1 for disposal of solid waste.For the past two years, the Caja del Rio Landfill has been using Cell 4B for disposal capacity. Cell 4B cost the Agency $5.1 million dollars to develop (excavate and line) and should provide up to four years of disposal capacity.

BuRRT
In 2003 the City and County approved the expansion of SFSWMA services beyond the landfill. SFSWMA embarked on the development of a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) at the old City Transfer Station to provide critical recycling processing services to the City and County of Santa Fe as well as communities across northern New Mexico. SFSWMA took over the Transfer Station on January 1, 2006 under a 20 year lease from the City.BuRRT is currently operating as the most advanced recycling facility in NM. The development of the MRF cost the agency approximately $3 million and has the capacity to serve the recycling needs of Santa Fe for many years to come. Check out the Tours page to experience recycling at BuRRT first hand.

Recycle

Many of these common household or office items can be placed in your recycling bin or taken to a transfer station. Recycling used materials into new products reduces: the consumption of raw materials, energy usage, air pollution from incineration, and water pollution from landfilling.Although it is not the answer to reducing our impact on the environment, it does provide a way to use valuable materials more than once.  If we didn’t recycle, we could end up extracting and using non renewable resources (precious metals and oil) until they are completely depleted.

There are many different items that you can recycle in Santa Fe, where you can recycle it just depends on what the item is. You can recycle electronics, hazardous waste, and green waste, but this section will concentrate on common recyclables that don’t require special handling or care.All types of paper including paperboard and cardboard, all plastic containers, and metals such as foil, aluminum, and tin can be recycled. Please make sure your recyclables are clean and dry and that you leave on all caps. Please do not crush your recyclables. Glass can also be recycled but it needs to be in a separate bin. See the materials to the right to find out where your items are accepted.

What metals can I recycle in Santa Fe?

Almost all metals are recyclable; it just depends on where you recycle it. Food or beverage metals are usually generated at home or work and consist of soda cans, canned food containers, and aluminum foil. Scrap metals are items like cooking pans, water heaters, or an old metal shed. For more information on bulky scrap metals, please see the Large Appliances section. Bulky metals are banned from our landfill.

Which metals are not recyclable?

Any object containing Mercury or Lead must be disposed of differently and cannot go in a recycling bin. Mercury is most commonly found in a thermometer or Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL). For more information, visit the Florescent Lights & Mercury section.

What Plastics Can I Recycle in Santa Fe?

Santa Fe has recently updated the program to allow recycling of ALL plastic containers regardless of number. Please make sure that your containers are rinsed, caps are recycled with bottles and that you do not crush your containers.We currently do NOT accept plastic bags and styrofoam for recycling.Plastic bags can be recycled in most supermarkets in Santa Fe and these systems accept a wide variety of bags for recycling including: newspaper bags, fruit/veggie bags, frozen plastic bags, sandwich/storage bags and most types of flexible plastic with a #4 printed on it.

Why recycle glass if it’s not made into something new?

It requires a lot of energy to heat the virgin materials to make glass and it can take hundreds of thousands of years for glass to break down in a landfill. Glass makes up a large component of household and industrial waste due to its weight, and it takes up precious landfill space and contributes to landfill expansion.In Santa Fe, glass is taken to the Buckman Road Recycling & Transfer Station (BuRRT) where it is crushed and stockpiled. BuRRT receives an average of 160 tons of glass per month from Santa Fe businesses and residents. Glass has been stockpiled at BuRRT over the recent years due to the lack of glass markets because it is very heavy and expensive to transport, especially since Santa Fe is in a rural part of the country. Glass is also very inexpensive to make, so the cost of transportation and the lack of demand for glass does not make it economically feasible for glass recycling in Santa Fe. Instead, the stockpiled glass will be beneficially used in the new cell at the Caja del Rio Landfill. The crushed glass will act as part of the landfill liner to collect the leachate that settles at the bottom.

What is Trash?

Trash is any object that is unusable or unwanted. It should really be considered “waste” since many contents of a trash bin are compostable, reusable, or recyclable and end up wasted in a landfill. There are many items that make it to our landfill that could have been given a second chance, yet there are also many items that cannot be recycled or composted because their material composition.Objects that have multiple materials combined (wax cartons, juice boxes, paper drinking/coffee cups, ATM and other waxy receipts) are made out of layer of plastic, paper, and sometimes metal. These materials are too difficult for recycling facilities to separate and therefore rendered trash.Other items that are food soiled (paper plates, greasy pizza boxes, tissues, and paper towels) are considered trash in Santa Fe because there is no commercial compost facility available. These items cannot be recycled when contaminated with food due to the rotting capabilities of the paper.