Transfer Station-Town of Hingham

A «Transfer Station» is a cleaned up way to refer to the town dump. And in the town where we live, there is no automatic curbside garbage pick-​up.
What you do here, is bring your sorted and organized trash Thursday through Sunday and dispose of it yourself.
Going to the dump can be a bit of a weekend social experience, strange as that may sound. It’s a chance to run into friends and neighbors that you might not see otherwise.
But most importantly, the Hingham dump provides a really accessible way for all of us to be more conscious of the importance of recycling.
At home, we separate everything from glass, cans, plastic, paper. cardboard, etc and then swoop it all up with any full trash bags and off we go.
I am so dismayed to see the sheer amount of plastic that accumulates week to week! So many things are packaged in plastic! The thought of just throwing it out and not recycling it is unsettling.
As for food items, any non-​animal food scraps go to our compost pile ultimately to be used in our garden after it’s turned into fabulous black gold teeming with great bacteria, earthworms and the like.
So between the sorting of the trash and the composting we rarely have more than one full bag of actual garbage in addition to all the stuff that gets recycled.
The dump is a vast place; acres really. There are special sheds to dispose of electronics, metals, defunct appliances and lawn and yard refuse.
Newspapers, cardboard, paper, plastic and glass bottles go into individual bins.
Then the trash bags go on a conveyor belt where they are disposed of as landfill.
The Hingham dump, like many these days, has what is called the «Swap Shop». Here you can drop off items that are still usable but that you no longer want.
You can liken it to going to a yard sale where everything is free for the taking. So rather than toss something out, the items get recycled another way by going to someone’s home to be utilized.
The swap shop is manned by town volunteers. People have been known to score a decent find or two and love to tell you about it. I see people hauling goods out of the Swap Shop area all the time.
You do need a town sticker on your car proving you’re a resident to be able to drive into the transfer station.
The staff working at the transfer station are employed by the town DPW and generally speaking they do a great job of keeping things running smoothly and in order.
Occasionally a worker or two can seem a little heavy handed in the way they interact with people but to be fair, I am sure they also see folks breaking the rules too requiring intervention.
Being up close and personal with one’s trash and being responsible for its removal to the transfer station, is a good way to stay in touch with the need to minimize waste overall.
Some of our «city» friends can’t believe we have to do this, preferring they say, the «luxury» of curbside garbage pick-​up, but we think going to the dump is pretty cool.
We are happy to know that many big cities including NYC now require sorting of garbage so that it can be recycled by the sanitation department.
It’s not a glamorous subject but I can’t think of too many that are as important as all the garbage we are each responsible for on a daily basis.
The only real solution is to be good stewards and to take responsibility for ensuring the proper disposition of the garbage we produce and the items we no longer want.
Our garbage is a part of our reality. It’s good to face up to the unpleasantness of it all and recycle everything we possibly can.
I leave you with my favorite «going to the dump» story told by another Massachusetts citizen.