City services

What Watertown City Collection Will and Will Not Take

Watertown's city refuse system is pay-as-you-go and its bulk pickup only runs half the year. Knowing exactly where the limits sit tells you when you need a container.

How city refuse actually works

Watertown's system is not the flat municipal service people expect if they have moved here from elsewhere. It is pay as you go.

City residents either buy City of Watertown Blue Refuse Stickers, which let you participate on an as-needed basis, or rent a City of Watertown Refuse Tote on a regular billed service. Curbside refuse collection is weekly for those customers, and recycling is weekly and included in the prepaid refuse service.

Two practical rules. Everything must be at the curb by 7:00 AM on your collection day; pickup runs between 7:00 AM and 3:00 PM. And if you are not a refuse customer, the city will not collect your recyclables — the two go together.

There is also a Curbside Assistance arrangement for residents who cannot get containers to the curb. It needs a form completed by your physician, and then operators collect from the front porch or side door. Worth knowing about for elderly or disabled householders.

Recycling is mandatory, and separated

For city refuse customers, recycling is not optional — it is mandatory, and participants have to follow the city's guidelines.

The other distinctive thing is how it is recycled. Jefferson County and the City of Watertown use source separation: cardboard, glass, paper, plastic and metal kept in individual containers rather than thrown together. Neighbouring St. Lawrence and Lewis Counties use single stream, which is why advice from a friend one county over may not match what you are supposed to do here.

The seasonal bulk pickup

Here is the part that matters most, and the reason a lot of people end up calling us.

Three things follow from that wording. It is seasonal, so there is no city bulk collection for roughly five months of the year. It is on demand, so it has to be requested rather than just set out. And it runs as weather permits, which in this county is a meaningful qualifier at both ends of the season.

Pricing is per item, published as a list. For a single sofa or a mattress in July, that is a good deal and you should use it.

The construction debris caveat

The bulk pickup list does include demolition and construction debris — which is more than a lot of cities offer. But read the terms.

All prices for it are estimates. Final cost is determined by the size and weight of the object. And a site visit may be needed before collection in order to calculate that cost.

For one awkward item, fine. For a bathroom gut generating debris over a fortnight, a per-item estimate-plus-site-visit process is not something you can build a project around. That is the gap a container fills, and it is why we are straightforward about the city service being genuinely useful for some jobs and genuinely unsuitable for others.

Seasonal brush and green waste

The city also runs a seasonal brush and green waste pickup, on the same broad calendar as the bulk service. If you are doing yard work between spring and autumn and your volume fits, use it.

Outside that window — or if you are taking down a tree rather than trimming — a container is the route.

The county transfer station, open all year

The Jefferson County Transfer Station and Recycling Center is the year-round option, and it is open to all county residents, not just city customers.

• 27138 NYS Route 12, Watertown — (315) 786-6900
• Monday to Friday 7:30am to 3:00pm
• Saturday 7:30am to 1:00pm
• Bulky items: $148 per ton
• Bagged trash: prepaid $4.00 stickers

It takes both construction and demolition debris and municipal solid waste. From there the county moves about 42,000 tons a year on to the Development Authority of the North Country landfill in the Town of Rodman.

Getting the transfer station order right

A small procedural point that saves a wasted trip.

If you are bringing bulky items and prepaid bags in the same load, the sequence is: weigh in first, unload the bulky items, then weigh out and pay before unloading the prepaid bags. The prepaid bags go inside Building #2, the residential solid waste building.

Do it in the wrong order and the weights do not work out, and you will be sorting it at the scale.

When a container is the right answer

• Between November and early April, when city bulk pickup is closed and you have more than one carload.
• Any renovation or construction job generating debris over days rather than as a single item.
• A whole-house or cellar clear-out you want done in a weekend rather than item by item.
• A tree coming down, rather than a trim.
• Anything a contractor generated. That debris is theirs to remove.
• Business, church, apartment or rental property, outside the residential service.
• Any address outside the City of Watertown — Calcium, Black River, Brownville, Adams and the rest have their own arrangements, and the city service does not apply. The county transfer station still does.

Call and describe what you are clearing. If the city or county route will handle it more cheaply, we will say so — and if it genuinely will not, we will put you in the right size container.