Yonkers, NY — April 3, 2026 — Students from Environmental Leaders of Color (ELOC) — a Mount Vernon-based nonprofit that has been cultivating the next generation of environmental advocates since 2021 — recently had the opportunity to trade the classroom for the tipping floor. Their destination: the Daniel P. Thomas Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in Yonkers, the center of recycling in Westchester County. The trip provided a front-row seat to the industrial machinery that turns what residents toss into their blue bins into something genuinely valuable, for both the environment and for the county’s bottom line.
Inside the MRF: Where Recycling Actually Happens
The Yonkers Daniel P. Thomas MRF serves as the cornerstone of recycling efforts for the municipalities in the County’s Refuse Disposal District. About 90 percent of all residentially collected recyclable material in Westchester County passes through this single facility. When trucks pull in, they dump their loads onto the tipping floor — a massive staging area where recyclables are received and fed into the sorting system. From there, conveyors carry the material through a sophisticated series of machines: screens that separate by size, magnets that pull out steel cans, eddy-current separators that fling aluminum, and high-tech optical sorters that shoot thousands of laser beams per second through each plastic container to identify the resin type by code. The result is a series of neatly categorized material streams — cardboard, mixed paper, glass, aluminum, steel, and plastics — that are compressed into bales and sold to manufacturers who use them as raw material for new products.
ELOC students first saw all of this from an observation tower overlooking the operation, then got to explore the facility happenings up close and personal. They also explored the MRF’s Recycled Material Art Gallery, located inside the Education Center, where six local artists have created stunning works entirely out of recycled and reused materials — a vivid reminder that what looks like waste can be transformed into something beautiful.
Why It Matters: Recycling Is Big Business for Westchester
Here is something most residents don’t realize: recycling generates real revenue for the county. In 2023, the MRF processed 65,929.27 tons of curbside recyclables, generating over $4 million in revenue from the sale of those materials. Under the county’s contract with its facility operator, Westchester receives an 80 percent share of all proceeds from the sale of recyclables.
This is not an abstraction for Black and Brown communities across Westchester. Cities like Mount Vernon, Yonkers, and New Rochelle — home to many of ELOC’s students — sit closer to industrial corridors, transfer stations, and other environmental burdens that come with gaps in environmental stewardship. Teaching young people from these communities to understand the systems of waste and resource recovery isn’t just civics education; it is environmental justice in action. When communities are empowered to recycle correctly, they protect their neighborhoods, reduce the demand for new raw material extraction, and ensure that public revenues stay strong.
Growing Leaders, Growing Impact.
The MRF offers educational tours free of charge to groups from kindergarten through adulthood, including school classes, scout troops, and community organizations. Tours are by appointment only and available on weekdays. To schedule a tour for your group, email the MRFTours@WestchesterCountyNY.gov.
For ELOC’s students — many of them young people from communities that have historically had the least say in environmental decisions that affect them most — standing on the observation deck of a facility that processes tens of thousands of tons of material every year sends a message: You belong in these conversations. You are part of the solution.
