Episode 6: Mendham’s Municipal Madness

(Listen on your favorite podcast player: iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, HeartRadio, Amazon Music)

When choosing a new hometown, it’s probably a good idea to know which town you’re choosing.

When I first purchased a house in Mendham, I didn’t quite realize that it was one of two towns. Yes, there were two Mendham’s on the map, but I came from California where I didn’t have townships or boroughs, and hadn’t really any thought to the names of towns, or their boundaries, or how that might affect how they operate. 

So when we bought our house in Mendham, I thought it was just in Mendham, and that Google Maps was just a little bit confused. Until recycling day…

When we moved here we had a surplus of cardboard and styrofoam. 

So I googled “styrofoam recycling Mendham”, and was pointed to a recycling place very close to my house. This is the Mendham Borough Public Works Garage. 

I pulled up, and asked where I could drop off my styrofoam. And they answered: “Do you live in the Township or the Borough”? I wasn’t quite sure. I told them I lived in the Oak Knoll neighborhood.

“Oh, that's the TOWNSHIP,” they said.  “This is only for BOROUGH residents. You’ll have to leave your recycling on the street and the Department of Public Works will pick it up. But that's only for cardboard and cans. Styrofoam has its own recycling day.” 

And, of course, they didn’t know when that was. 

So I left the recycling center with more questions than answers. What was Mendham Borough and what was the Township? And why was there a difference? Had it always been this way? And most importantly, I still wondered, when is styrofoam recycling day?

(Theme)

Welcome to Hometown History. A series about the iconic places and events that make a town someplace people call home - stories that people can tell to their friends old and new about the place they live, did