The recycling centre at 308 East Elizabeth Street has served Brownsville as a public drop-off point for many years, and it remains the address most people search for. Its status has changed, though, and anyone planning a trip should read this before setting off.

In 2025 the city ran a competitive procurement for residential solid waste and recycling. Republic Services was selected to collect residential solid waste and Redfish Recycling to provide residential recycling. Kerbside recycling collection began in January 2026, with a red cart delivered to every household inside the city limits under city ordinance, collected every other week on a designated day, and billed through the utility bill at $0.86 a month.

The city's current recycling pages describe that kerbside programme and do not describe a staffed public drop-off centre at 308 East Elizabeth. We cannot confirm from any city source that the site is still open to the public for walk-up drop-off, so we have removed the fee and hours claims this listing previously carried rather than leave figures on the page we cannot stand behind. Call (956) 541-9501 to check before you go.

What the city does publish is useful in the meantime. The kerbside programme is single-stream: paper and cardboard, plastics numbered 1 and 2, and aluminium and tin cans all go loose into the red cart with no sorting or bagging. Glass is not accepted anywhere in the programme, and the only glass recycling bin the city names is at 501 Morrison Road. Plastic bags and film, Styrofoam, food and greasy paper, yard waste, electronics, batteries, tangled hoses, wire and chains, furniture, clothing, rugs, towels, shoes and stained food containers are all excluded. Electronics go to RDA Technologies at 468 Regal Road, Unit 124.