The
term “hazardous waste” calls up images of industrial plants spewing ugly green
effluent into the nearest waterway or nuclear energy plants on the verge of
meltdown. But you need look no further than your own basement, garage, and
storage closets to discover stuff — much of it seemingly benign — that is
dangerous to you and others today, and potentially
harmful to the environment for years to come.
A
while ago, I told a neighbor who was moving to let me know if there was
anything I could do to help. The next day I found outside my door trash barrels
filled with sundry junk — containers of paint, oven cleaner, toilet bowl
sanitizer, wood polish, furniture stripper, darkroom chemicals, a computer
monitor, insect spray, fungicide… Attached was a note from my neighbor, who
happened to be an environmental engineer: “All this stuff is hazardous waste.
Do you mind getting rid of it? We didn’t have time.”
Whether
I minded or not, I was stuck with it. Aside from some laundry bleach and metal
polish, the stuff was useless to me. My first impulse was to put it all
curbside for trash pickup. Fortunately, I learned that the Monroe County
Department of Environmental Services runs a household hazardous waste (HHW)
collection center on East Henrietta Road, right across
from MonroeCommunityHospital.
County
residents can drop off most types of HHW in limited quantities at the
collection center. I arrived at my scheduled time and, after a short wait for a
car in front of me, two men took my neighbor’s boxes and containers out of the
back of my station wagon. And that was that. (They didn’t accept the computer
monitor, but I eventually found a safe place for that, too. See sidebar.)
Americans
generate 1.6 million tons of HHW every year, with 100 pounds of it lurking in the
average home, says the federal Environmental Protection Agency. During the
1980s, communities started to respond to the problem, organizing special
collection days and other programs. A relatively small number of communities
set up permanent collection sites.
MonroeCounty has the only
permanent site in Western New York, one of five in the entire
state, says Tom Sinclair, who oversees operations at Monroe’s drop-off
center. Collection of HHW by the county began with a one-day event in 1989 that
drew 1,400 participants. Two years later, the county built the permanent
collection center at 444 East Henrietta Road. (The DES
also runs mobile collections several times a year in conjunction with outlying MonroeCounty towns and
villages, which promote the one-day events.)
In
2004, the program received more than 297 tons of HHW from more than 6,000
households, about 99 pounds per household served. The operation has a $300,000
annual budget and a staff of eight employees.
Sitting
at his desk in a sparely furnished office at the collection center, Sinclair
cheerfully offers a quick dose of HHW consciousness. As he talks, I’m reminded
of a couple of basic environmental realities: The waste from our everyday lives
ripples through nature in ways most of us don’t contemplate. And our best
environmental control systems can only mitigate the flow and soften the impact
of waste materials we push into the air, the ground, and the water.
Sinclair
describes how substances thrown into the trash, dumped behind the garage, or
simply left to corrode eventually percolate through the earth into the water
table. Poured down sink drains or into storm sewers, HHW contaminates septic
tanks and wastewater treatment systems, not to mention streams, rivers, canals,
lakes, and oceans.
With
HHW, the important first step is to get the dangerous stuff out of the home,
where children and pets are the most likely to be hurt by it. And remember that
if it is potentially harmful to you, it can certainly hurt others. A sanitation
worker was badly injured a few years ago in East
Rochester by a caustic substance in household garbage, Sinclair says.
HHW
disposal is free for county residents, within set limits on what and how much
you can leave. Drop-offs are by appointment, to be sure that the people and
gear needed to receive materials are ready and, Sinclair says with obvious
pride, so that “nobody has to wait in a line of cars.” Appointments are usually
several days from the time you phone; the DES sends callers a flier with
details of what can and can’t be brought in, the drop-off process, directions
to the site, and other information. Collection hours include one evening and
one Saturday a month, and the staff generally tries to be flexible and
responsive to individual needs.
What
happens to the HHW that’s collected? Eastman Kodak Company voluntarily disposes
of one quarter of the non-recyclable materials in its hazardous waste incinerator,
saving taxpayers thousands of dollars. (Some items, like printer cartridges,
can be recycled at no cost to the county.) The balance is hauled away by a
commercial disposal operation, which burns it in its own licensed incinerator.
So
even when properly disposed of, hazardous waste seeps into the environment.
That’s why the first leg of the three-part EPA mantra is REDUCE. Using less at
the front end means less out the back end.
“Buy
only what you can use,” Sinclair says. “What you can’t use, give away. People
keep half-empty paint cans in the garage for touchups. Face it: You’re never
going to touch up the hallway. Give the paint to the neighbor. If it’s not the
right color, they can use it for primer.”
The
countyHHW web pages
(www.monroecounty.gov under Environmental Services) include basic information
on the program and a nifty interactive “virtual house” you can use to track
down hazardous materials in your home.
To
unload your household hazardous waste, call MonroeCounty’s HHW
collection center at 760-7600 (option 3). MonroeCounty residents can
bring up to 30 gallons of liquid and 75 pounds of solid HHW per appointment
without charge. No 55-gallon drums accepted.
Webster
and Penfield will hold an appointment-only HHW collection at the Webster
Highway Garage, 1005 Picture Parkway, on Saturday,
April 23, from 8 a.m. to noon. Webster
residents call 872-1443. Penfield residents call 340-8710.
How
we stack
A
scan of household hazardous waste websites in other cities indicates that,
while bigger metro areas like Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Minneapolis have more
pick-up events, none have basic services that surpass what the MonroeCounty program
offers. The HHW program in the Seattle area (King County, Washington) is widely
considered a model, according to MonroeCounty’s Tom
Sinclair, but even that program has only the same basic components of our local
service. Boston appears to
have a more limited program than ours.
Bits
and bytes
One
of the biggest energy hogs in a growing number of households is the home
computer. A recent United Nations report (Computers
and the Environment, by the UnitedNationsUniversity in Tokyo) says that
the average desktop PC and 17-inch monitor take as much water, fossil fuels,
and chemicals to manufacture as an SUV. And the report adds that a computer’s
lifetime energy impact is about the same as a refrigerator.
With
computers, the input side is only part of the environmental problem. The
machines and their monitors contain ecologically nasty substances like lead and
mercury, so disposing of them is a big problem compounded by the short
lifecycle of machines in the “must-upgrade” world of computing.
Recycling
the growing mountain of old computers can also be expensive — too expensive
for MonroeCounty and other
localities to offer as a service. However, for a nominal cost, Dell Computer
Co. offers pickup of obsolete computer components and monitors, as well as a
program that refurbishes newer computers for use by disabled and economically
disadvantaged people. (Do a Google search for “Dell
computer recycling.”)
Some
states are pushing programs to charge computer makers a front-end fee at the
retail level that would help pay for recycling of computer components.
“The actual costs of recycling will be part of the price and the bottom
line,” Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the
Environment, told Wired magazine. “We want the companies to compete on that basis.” As it stands,
Schneider said, computer manufacturers have no incentive to design less-toxic
products because disposing of the machines is not their problem.
Recycling
is better than throwing computers in the trash, which may be illegal and risks
exposing the personal data on your hard drive. But recycling destroys the
machine that it took so many resources to make. The most effective way to
reduce a computer’s environmental impact is to extend its useful life. Some
commercial enterprises have made a profitable business by collecting old
computers for a fee then refurbishing and reselling them. (Two local firms are
Rochester Computer Recycling and Recovery and Maven Technologies.)
Better
yet is a not-for-profit organization called Micrecycle,
which accepts PCs with a Pentium 233 chip or newer (which covers computers made
in the past six or seven years). Macintosh machines are not accepted. Staffed
by volunteers, Micrecycle repairs and refurbishes
computer components for free distribution to Rochester-area non-profits.
Based
at the RochesterMuseum and ScienceCenter, and
operating under the umbrella of Science Linkages in the Community (SLIC), the
organization’s ulterior aim is “to bridge the digital divide,” says Gerald Frith, operations manager. In addition to computers, Micrecycle accepts monitors and printers in working
condition. (Computers don’t have to work.) For information on donating or
volunteering, call 224-4040 or visit www.micrecycle.org.
Rechargeable
batteries from laptop computers, cell phones and other electronic devices
contain hazardous metals like cadmium and mercury. These can be dropped off by
appointment at the countyHHW center. Also,
many Radio Shack stores will accept rechargeable batteries and cell phones.
According to the Radio Shack website, proceeds from cell phone collection
benefit the NationalCenter for Missing
& Exploited Children. (Call the store for information first.) Also, a
number of charities, churches, schools, and not-for-profits run cell-phone
collection programs to raise funds.
What
to dump
Got
some household hazardous waste to unload? Here’s a list of what is and isn’t
accepted at MonroeCounty’s drop-off
site.
Acceptable
materials
• Oil-based and latex paint (for 1/3 gallon or less of latex
paint: discard lid, add kitty litter,
let dry, place can in trash)
• Wood stain and preservatives
• Automotive fluids (antifreeze; brake, power steering, and
transmission fluids)
• Pesticides and fertilizers
• Flammable products (gasoline, kerosene, thinners, strippers,
solvents, glues, etc.)
•
Household cleaners (soaps, waxes, drain cleaners, etc.)
• Driveway sealer
• Propane tanks (one- and 20-pound only)
• Pool and photo chemicals
• Rechargeable (Ni-Cad) and button batteries
• Mercury (thermometers, thermostats)
• Syringes/sharps (safely packaged)
• Cooking oil/cooking grease
Materials
not accepted
• 1/3 gallon or less of latex paint
• Cans with dried paint — remove lid and place in trash
• Used motor oil and lead acid batteries (contact service station
or retailer)
• Empty containers (place in trash or recycle)
• Smoke detectors (trash or contact maker)
• Everyday alkaline batteries (place in trash)
• Glazing/spackle and joint compounds (trash)
• Asbestos (see Yellow Pages under — “Asbestos
Abatement”)
• Products intended for industrial use
• Explosives/ammunition/black/smokeless power (call 911)
• Shock sensitive materials (i.e. crystallized ethers, picric
acid) (call 911)
Safe
alternatives
One
of the best ways to reduce HHW is to use alternatives to toxic household
products. Here are some ideas from the EPA:
•
Drain cleaner: use a plunger or plumber’s snake.
•
Oven cleaner: clean spills as soon as the oven cools using steel wool and
baking soda; for tough stains, add salt (do not use this method in self-cleaning
or continuous-cleaning ovens).
•
Glass cleaner: mix one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice in one quart of
water. Spray on and use newspaper to wipe dry.
•
Toilet bowl cleaner: Use a toilet brush and baking soda or vinegar. (This will clean
but not disinfect.)
•
Furniture polish: Mix one teaspoon of lemon juice in one pint of mineral or
vegetable oil, and wipe furniture.
•
Rug deodorizer: Deodorize dry carpets by sprinkling liberally with baking soda.
Wait at least 15 minutes and vacuum. Repeat if necessary.
•
Silver polish: Boil two to three inches of water in a shallow pan with one teaspoon
of salt, one teaspoon of baking soda, and a sheet of aluminum foil. Totally
submerge silver and boil for two to three more minutes. Wipe away tarnish.
Repeat if necessary. (Do not use this method on antique silver knives. The
blade will separate from the handle.) Another alternative is to use nonabrasive
toothpaste.
•
Plant sprays: Wipe leaves with mild soap and water; rinse.
•
Mothballs: Use cedar chips, lavender flowers, rosemary, mint, or white peppercorns.
•
Flea and tick products: Put brewer’s yeast or garlic in your pet’s food; sprinkle
fennel, rue, rosemary, or eucalyptus seeds or leaves around animal sleeping areas.
•
DO NOT mix anything with a commercial cleaning agent.
•
If you do store a homemade mixture, make sure it is properly labeled and do not
store it in a container that could be mistaken for food or beverage.
•
When preparing alternatives, mix only what is needed for the job at hand and
mix them in clean, reusable containers. This avoids waste and the need to store
any cleaning mixture.
More
to know
An
EPA website has plenty of additional information that can be useful, as do the
websites of other metro areas:
•
www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/hhw.htm (EPA)
• www.govlink.org/hazwaste/index.cfm (King
County, Wash.)
• ladpw.org/epd/hhw/
(Los AngelesCounty)
• www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/solid-waste/hhw.asp
(Minneapolis/Hennepin County, Minn.)
• temp.sfgov.org/sfenvironment/aboutus/toxics/pickup.htm
(San Francisco)
This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2005.
