Household Hazardous Waste and Recycling — Brevard County, Florida

Brevard County runs three free household hazardous waste collection centers, one of them at the Sarno Landfill, 3379 Sarno Road in Melbourne.

The Solid Waste Management Department runs all three as permanent centers for chemical and electronic products that come from non-business activities (Brevard County Household Hazardous Waste). Delivery costs nothing for Brevard County residents. Staff may ask for proof of residency and for the source of the materials, and a driver's license, a tax bill or a utility bill is enough to show residency. The centers share one schedule: Monday through Saturday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with no Sunday hours at Sarno Road, Adamson Road or South Street.

The Titusville site has been working around construction. The county's Mockingbird Way page says a replacement transfer station is being built there and that, from July 19, 2024, through August 2026, the site would no longer accept vegetative waste or other wood, metals, white goods, concrete or tires, which had to go to the Central Disposal Facility in Cocoa instead; the same notice says the Mockingbird household hazardous waste center remains accessible (Mockingbird Way Mulching Facility). The county's own pages differ on the Cocoa street number: the hazardous waste page gives 2250 Adamson Road and the Mockingbird notice gives 2260 Adamson Road.

Only Sarno Road and Adamson Road run the full menu. Electronics recycling, the Drop and Swap shelf and used cooking oil collection are offered at those two Brevard County centers and not at South Street, so a Palm Bay or Grant-Valkaria household with a mixed load of paint, a dead laptop and a jug of fryer oil can finish the trip at Sarno Road.

The Sarno Road center in Melbourne, like its Cocoa and Titusville counterparts, takes the chemicals stored in a Brevard household's garage, yard and house, up to 25 gallons of liquid per household per year.

The county sorts the accepted list by where the product sits (Brevard County Solid Waste). From the garage: antifreeze, brake and power steering fluid, motor oil, auto and boat batteries, boat flares, gasoline and diesel, lighter fluid, lubricants, oil filters, paints, stains, thinners, sealers, solvents and roof coatings. From the yard: fertilizers, fungicides, flea dips and sprays, herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, pool cleaning supplies and rat poison. From the house: aerosol sprays, adhesives, drain cleaner, compact fluorescent bulbs, mercury thermometers and thermostats, nail polish remover, rubbing alcohol and peroxide, and rechargeable Ni-cad, lithium and button batteries. Spray paint, shaving gel, hair mousse, bug spray and oven cleaner cans are to be dropped off at a county collection center such as Sarno Road.

Bulk liquids get a small courtesy. A resident who hauls used motor oil, gasoline or antifreeze to Sarno Road can take the container home again once the HHW Technician has poured the liquid off, a step the county ties to the program's safety protocol. The county asks for products in their original labeled containers, never mixed, with leaking containers in clear plastic bags, boxes padded with newspaper, the load riding in the trunk or truck bed away from passengers, and battery terminals covered with heavy tape. By the Brevard County department's own estimate, the average home can collect as much as 100 pounds of household hazardous waste across kitchens, bathrooms, garages and sheds.

The Sarno Road, Adamson Road and South Street centers refuse explosives, biomedical waste, propane tanks, 55-gallon drums and boat bilge water, and the county's hazardous waste page names an alternative route for most of them.

Explosives go to the Brevard County Sheriff's Office Bomb Squad at (321) 633-7141 (Household Hazardous Waste). Bilge water, the oily fuel and water mix from a boat bilge, goes back to a marina or a used oil recycler. Propane tanks go to scrap metal dealers that the county lists by name, after a call to ask about handling. A fully discharged fire extinguisher can go in Brevard household trash, while a charged one goes to a fire extinguisher company. Smoke detectors are trash or mail-back items, because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers household units below regulatory concern. Nothing larger than a 5-gallon bucket is accepted, which rules out 55-gallon drums at Sarno Road and every other center.

Some items are simply ordinary garbage under county guidance. Alkaline AA, AAA, C and D batteries are treated as non-hazardous, and empty, hardened paint cans go in the trash with the lid removed. Rechargeable batteries are different: Florida Statutes s. 403.7192 bars knowingly placing a rechargeable nickel-cadmium or sealed lead-acid battery, or a product containing one, in a mixed solid waste stream (Florida Statutes s. 403.7192), and the accepted list for Sarno Road and the other county centers includes rechargeable batteries. Old tube televisions are a point where two county pages disagree. The hazardous waste page says rear-projection and cathode ray tube televisions can be thrown in the regular trash, while the electronics page says CRT TVs, monitors and rear projection TVs are not accepted, calls them hazardous wastes and says not to dispose of them with regular trash (Disposal of Household Electronics).

Paint lost a long-running Brevard program. The county latex paint recycling and giveaway program has been suspended indefinitely after 32 years, because the plant that turned the paint into a recycled product stopped offering the service; latex and oil-based paints are still taken for disposal at Sarno Road, Adamson Road and South Street.

Medicines and needles have separate routes. The county asks that medications stay out of trash, sinks and toilets and lists free drop-off points, including the Sheriff's Office South Precinct at 1515 Sarno Rd., Bldg. B, Melbourne, and the West Precinct at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Bldg. E, Viera, open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for pills, ointments and lotions, with no liquids, syringes, asthma inhalers, aerosol canisters or chemotherapy drugs (Prescription Drug Disposal). Used needles go through a free Brevard County sharps program that requires sharps containers and lists collection sites open every day from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Used Household Sharps).

Computers, flat screens and similar electronics from Palm Bay, Melbourne or Malabar homes can be dropped free at the Sarno Road center in Melbourne or the Adamson Road center in Cocoa, or picked up at the curb by the hauler that serves the address.

The county electronics page lists computer processors, flat screen TVs and monitors, keyboards, printers, mice, power supplies, external drives, scanners, fax machines, stereos and radios as accepted (Brevard County electronics disposal). Its free drop-off times at 2250 Adamson Rd. and 3379 Sarno Rd. match the chemical hours, Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Green Wave Computer Recycling, based in Indianapolis, is named on that page as the electronics contractor for Brevard County Solid Waste, and businesses that hire it can ask for the county's negotiated rates.

Melbourne spells out its own rule. Electronics such as computers, monitors, printers, fax machines, game systems and telephones are a scheduled specialty bulky pickup through WM, and all batteries must be removed first and taken to the Household Hazardous Waste Facility at the Sarno Landfill (City of Melbourne Trash and Recycling).

Palm Bay is where the county list has not caught up. The City of Palm Bay says Republic Services of Florida took over residential collection on October 1, 2020, and its request for proposals covered residential solid waste, recyclables, bulky waste, white goods, electronic waste and tires; the county electronics page still lists Waste Management for Palm Bay (City of Palm Bay, Republic Services). Palm Bay households can still use the free Sarno Road drop-off whatever the hauler.

Curbside recycling in Brevard County is arranged city by city: Republic Services collects it in Palm Bay, WM in Melbourne, and Waste Management in unincorporated Brevard.

In Palm Bay every residential customer gets recycling pickup on Wednesday, and when a holiday lands on a Wednesday the route moves to Saturday that week (City of Palm Bay). Melbourne also collects all recycling on Wednesdays, in the yellow-lidded cart, with green lids reserved for garbage (City of Melbourne).

In unincorporated Brevard, Waste Management collects recycling and yard waste one day each week, carts go within 5 feet of the curb the night before or by 6:00 a.m., and collection runs from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Brevard County Residential Collection). The county recycling program for unincorporated property is funded by the State Mandated Recycling non-ad valorem assessment, which the Brevard County Tax Collector says was implemented in 1989, while municipalities maintain their own recycling programs; questions go to Solid Waste Management at (321) 633-2043 (Brevard County Tax Collector).

The targets behind the program differ by source. The Tax Collector describes a 30-percent landfill reduction goal, while Florida Statutes s. 403.706 directs each county to run a recycling program with a goal of 75 percent by December 31, 2020 (Florida Statutes s. 403.706). For sorting questions, the Brevard County Recycling page posts single-stream dos and don'ts for the kitchen, laundry, bathroom, office and mailbox, plus the Recyclopedia lookup (Brevard County Recycling), and the Mockingbird Way site in Titusville takes single stream recycling and clean cardboard from residents.

Drop and Swap and used vegetable oil recycling are offered only at the Sarno Road center in Melbourne and the Central Disposal Facility in Cocoa, and a separate Enviro Business day handles small Brevard businesses.

Drop and Swap sets aside usable products that residents bring in, and other residents can take household cleaners, automotive fluids and paint from the shelf at no charge (Brevard County Household Hazardous Waste). The cooking oil drop is open to Brevard County residents only and takes any liquid vegetable-based oil, including peanut, corn, canola, olive, sunflower and safflower. The oil has to be cooled, unmixed with water, petroleum, soap or animal fat, and sealed in a metal or plastic container with a tight lid. Grease mixed with animal fat is refused at Sarno Road; the county says to let it harden in a jar or coffee can and put it in the trash.

The household centers take items from non-business activities, but very small quantity generators, defined as producing less than 25 gallons or 220 pounds of chemical waste a month, can join an Enviro Business collection day held every 90 days at the county's contracted disposal rates. Each business pays the contractor directly, books an appointment and sends an inventory at least one week ahead. The 2026 dates are January 29, April 30, July 30 and October 29, 2026. The county warns that improper disposal of business waste violates Florida regulations, with penalties of up to $50,000 per day, and the Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program answers questions at (321) 633-1888.

Last verified: October 12, 2026, against the county Solid Waste, Tax Collector, Palm Bay and Melbourne pages linked above.