Long Island towns delay trash, recycling pickups as blizzard cleanup continues

The blizzard that dumped 30 inches of snow on parts of Long Island has shaken up life's daily rhythms, including trash pickup for residents of at least seven towns.

Officials in the towns of Oyster Bay, Islip, Babylon, Hempstead, Riverhead, Smithtown and Brookhaven canceled garbage and recycling services on Tuesday. In posts on town websites and on social media, they said crews required more time to clear municipal roads.

"Garbage and recycling pickup has been canceled until Thursday so that all crews can be dedicated to snow removal throughout the week," a post on Oyster Bay's Facebook page read. "Please keep your garbage and recycling cans off the street and away from curbs. Plows will continue operating on local streets."

The post noted that pickup would resume as usual on Thursday.

In Islip, a social media post noted that "collection will resume on your normally scheduled pickup day this week."

Huntington officials wrote on social media that collection was on. They said there was garbage pickup Tuesday in cases where roads were passable. For those whose regular trash pickup day was Tuesday and were missed, "residents can put out twice the amount of garbage on the next regularly scheduled pickup day, which is Friday."

In Babylon, residents are encouraged to "hold trash and put it out for collection on Friday," according to a social media post.

In Hempstead Town, garbage and recycling scheduled for Monday and Tuesday were canceled, according to the town's website. Regular service resumes Wednesday, and regular pickup will resume on Thursday and Friday. This does not cover village collection services nor those run by independently run sanitation districts.

Pickup will resume in Smithtown "on your next normally scheduled service day" for those scheduled for Tuesday, a social media post said.

Southold doesn't have residential trash pickup, but the town dump where residents haul their trash and recyclables was closed Tuesday. Supervisor Al Krupski Jr. said it will reopen Wednesday.

"There's so much snow; we don't want to have people coming and going," he said in an interview Tuesday. "Let everybody clean up properly and be safe."

Trash disposal was likely another point of storm prep for Southold residents. Krupski said he was at the town's dump on Sunday, when it "was pretty busy."

"People planned ahead," he said.

The Town of East Hampton said on social media that its recycling center would be closed on Tuesday.

Riverhead's garbage pickup is scheduled to resume Wednesday, a town spokesperson said.

Newsday's Deborah S. Morris, Ted Phillips and Tara Smith contributed to this story.