The Galveston Recycle Center sits at 702 61st Street, across from the Target, and it is the city's municipal recycling drop-off on the island. It is a self-service site.

Staff are on hand seven days a week, from 8am to 4:45pm, and the city now advertises a 24-hour drop-off as well, so material can be left outside staffed hours. For an island city where the mainland alternatives are a causeway drive away, that round-the-clock access is the single most useful thing about the place.

There is no charge. This is a recycling drop-off rather than a landfill gate, so nothing is weighed, no scale ticket is issued, and no per-load or per-ton price applies.

Galveston also runs a monthly home collection of recyclables for elderly and disabled residents. You apply through Public Works on 409-797-3630, and on approval the city delivers a 14-gallon blue bin at no cost. The bin is deliberately small - its job is to mark recyclables out from ordinary rubbish for the crew, not to hold a month's volume.

Two cautions before you load the car. First, the city's Recycle Center page publishes the address and the hours but no accepted-materials list, so we are not printing one; a list stitched together from older directories would be a guess. Ring ahead if you are bringing anything beyond ordinary household recyclables, and expect proof of address to be asked for on regulated items. Second, the city publishes two different phone numbers for this site - 409-797-3958 on its staff directory and 409-741-1446 on its utility billing FAQ. Either ought to reach someone; try the first.