Building on the Plainfield and Meriden Libraries efforts in the late 1980s to recycle paper, Plainfield's drop-off recycling shed opened in January 1990 and continues operation to this day.  Led by Jim Thompson and an active group of volunteers, the shed initially accepted glass containers, metals and newspapers.  Participation in 1990 and 1991 was estimated at around 5 to 10 percent of the town's households and saw marked increases with implementation of the curbside recycling program and user fee system in 1992.  Data on the amount of recyclables collected at the Shed have been included in Town Annual Reports dating back to 1990.

Plainfield began its curbside recycling program in October 1991 as a 6-month pilot project leading up to the 1992 Town Meeting.  By the 1992 Town Meeting, participation rates were in excess of 80 percent of Plainfield households.  Working closely with Northeast Waste Services, which already was picking up residents' trash on a weekly basis, a Solid Waste Committee designed a curbside program that alternated the pick-up of trash and recyclables each week.  The pilot program was approved by the Board of Selectmen at a September 4, 1991 public hearing on the recommendation of the Solid Waste Committee.  A warrant article at the 1991 town meeting had charged the committee, which included Richard Atkinson, Steve Halleran, Robert Marrazzo, Jon Scott, Cherrie Torrey and Susan Williams, with studying Plainfield's solid waste management system and reporting back to the 1992 Town meeting. 

The committee identified three primary disadvantages of the existing waste management system:

1) Waste disposal was costly, one of largest items in the town budget.

2)  The amount residents paid for waste disposal was based on the whole town's disposal costs and the amount of property owned.  There was no relationship between individual waste generated and disposal costs.

3)  Participation rates in the town's drop-off recycling program were low. 

With the aim of reducing the town's total waste disposal costs, reducing the property tax rate associated with waste disposal and more closely linking waste generation to disposal costs, the committee recommended to the 1992 Town Meeting that the town formally adopt the pilot curbside recycling program and institute a user fee system under which residents (including businesses and institutions) paid for solid waste disposal based on the amount of trash generated.  The committee also recommended there be no charge for recyclables and that the drop-off recycling shed continue operation to complement the curbside program.  The 1992 Town Meeting passed two articles implementing the committee's recommendations.   Data on the amount of recyclables collected through the curbside program have been included in Town Annual Reports dating back to 1991.