Kent County Recycling and Education Center in
East Grand Rapids (MI)

Easy place to drop off recycling.

Having continuous issues with my recycling. The driver that picks up my bin, will drop my cart back down after “cleaning it out” and often times drops my bin down hard which causes it to fall over, doesn’t even have the decency to pick it up, and may leave items if not still in the bin, still on my curb. Not to mention he’s careful with others bins but mine seem to be drop down and falls over and carelessly they drive off. What’s the point in having recycling, if most of what I’m recycling ends up on my curb and back in my bin- in hopes they will have the common courtesy to fully clean it out next time. Not sure who to contact about this, but why be lazy on the job? This needs to be addressed and resolved.

Why can't there be a drop off open on Saturday or longer hours during the week?

Great facility —- but really inconsiderate hours for people who work M-F. Why not at least two evenings a week til 7pm?

Hard to reach them on the phone to ask any questions if you're new to the area. Did not know you had to only have certain size to fit the hole for recycling.

It's easy to recycle here, and I'm glad I don't have to pay for a service to come pick it up. I wish the opening to drop off recyclables was bigger. It's difficult to dump your whole bag of stuff in, but you can still get everything through.

Actually very convenient, drive in, dump your box of mixed recyclables through the doorway, move on. The facility also serves as a transfer station, so it's not a single use place. Any peek through the doorway would tell you that.

Wealthy street tried too recycle there 1st time. Smallest window in the world with bars across it soi couldn't dump my box or recyclables. Super frustrating I can't bent over 190times for each item. Stupid set up.

It works. Clearly not many people utilize the service since there's only one drop point.

What a total waste of our taxes! This place is fir the birds! Only one vehicle at a time can get rid of recycleables, and, lets not have available hours of operation that help anyone! Only open weekdays til 4:30? Not open on Saturday? You must really not want folks to participate! You should never have closed Kentwood on the idea that people can use their waste haulers for recycling. Not everyone can afford to add the cost to their monthly bill. This is a horrible dis service to the taxpayers of Kent County!!

I do all plastic and a great place to ♻️

Dear. City, I thank you for all you do! I am , however, concerned for our environment and not sure how our new recycling center works. Our wonderful recycling center was closed in kentwood a few years ago. This was disappointing but I then began taking my recycling to the wealthy street location. That center closed in March of 2021 and a new center was to open in the fall. I saved some recycling and waited for the fall. I believe in March of 2022The new center finally opened! I was very excited to use the brand new center. My excitement was short lived! I can not express the extreme disappointment I felt, as others have stated, after visiting the new center. I am not sure what to do the one barred window available. I then expected a bin on the other side of the window to catch the items I droppped in window. There is not a bin, but simply a cement floor in which one drops your sorted items onto. Breaking glass flying newspapers etc… Then I believe a large truck comes and scoops all the recycling up together all mixed up! I don’t understand how this is a good thing at all. It certainly does not allow for a timely recycling experience, unless of course you are the only one there. I do not understand how this is beneficial. Please explain.

This is review is for recycling drop off only. There is only 1 small window to drop recycling into. Space for a line of cars, but only 1 person at a time can drop into the window. I went on a windy day. HUGE MISTAKE!! The wind blew from the open doors “inside” right through the window. Everything lightweight was easily picked up and blown all over the property, even a small gust would send items right into your face. It is a horrible drop off setup, designed very poorly! I expected so much more!

I guess Kent County really doesn't want people dropping off their recyclables anymore, the new "drop off" area is a small hole in the side of their processing building with metal bars across it! I had to literally throw my recyclables through the little opening one at a time, and there is oonly room for one person at a time to use the hole. Before I would bring my recyclables in a re-usable plastic trash can that was easy to haul, but it wont fit in the hole to dump it. Also, the place looked terrible as the parking lot and grass in front and side of the building are full of blown away recyclables and litter. Pretty bad image and mindset for a well run county like Kent and for a Recycling Education Center.

Still waiting for this place to reopen, and currently have no way to dispose of my bags of recyclables I’ve diligently set aside, except to give in and dispose of them with my other garbage. Not everyone lives in a residence where we can have recyclables picked up. What’s expected of someone like myself, who wants to be a responsible citizen but finds it difficult to do so because they live in an apartment? I’m tired of this. Someone did NOT think things through, when the drop off facility became closed off to the public —AND for longer than what was expected.

Is this place open yet? It seems like there's no way of contacting anyone aside from hauling all my stuff down and finding out the hard way. I just need to drop off cardboard, the site says the construction closures were supposed to be done months ago. The site gives conflicting info one page saying it's closed, another saying it's open. contact us was no help and the phone line seems to just give direction info. if it's still closed then some kind of actual update would be awesome, otherwise at this point I'm just going to have to haul all my recycling over to my storage unit until the station actually decides to open or until I can't hold onto stuff anymore and have to find some other way of getting rid of it

To Whom this may concern, Please update your public website to reflect the current hours of operation for you SafeChem Program. After doing a little research, I discovered that your program only runs certain days, at certain times, in certain locations. Being I work from home, I had the opportunity to try and recycle my used oil and gasoline this morning at 7am. According to your website, a team of employees were supposed to be located at the Wyoming Clean Water Plant to receive approved products. I prepared for my trip the night before and shifted my work schedule around to complete this errand. I arrived at the Clean Water plant around 10 after 7 to find out that the city was actually on HOLIDAY and there was no one in attendance to help with my disposal. I wasted my time, energy and money trying to do the right thing, only to find out that the establishment that I PAY taxes towards has failed to do their due diligence and properly update the public website. WHY? Please update your website to reflect REAL HOURS OF OPERATIONS so another tax paying patron doesn't have to go through the same thing as myself. Best, Mike Landis

I love this place but wish it would open back up! You guys were always great in the process of being able to recycle! Fall has come … when are you reopening?

We enjoyed the recycling education as well as seeing the process.

Load ya up fast in and out in no time !

The dumpster bins have been removed at the end of March and won't be back until sometime in the fall. The quonset hut that took electronic recycling has been torn down. Find somewhere else for the next few months.

This is a wonderful program and we do not want to lose it! Please go to the website and read the information on what can and cannot be recycled as well as the part about cleaning your items before recycling!! 🤩💯Thank you Kent County recycling center! I'm sure not only I appreciate all of your hard work to provide this service for us Kent County residents!

I like the conveyor belt. It moves the debris along. There were birds having a party inside as well. I like the newspapers amen. You can go inside on certain days and have a good ole look around. Thank you and austiviano.

They are terrible they didnt pick up our recycle they just drove passed it ,that makes three times they did this ..I even put it out a day early

This is the City of Grand Rapids' drop off location and sorting facility for recycling. They have bins for corrugated cardboard and single stream recycling. Tip: Get there early if you have a lot because the bins fill up!

Extremely nice people and an eye opening tour that is great to bring kids to.

Recycling made easy if you don't have curbside pickup.