Posted on 10/20/2019 5:57:07 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Hazardous Waste Day: the Saga Continues. This story should have been dead yesterday but it is not.
Let me explain.
Raj and I left for Hazardous Household Waste (HHW) collection day, which ran from 8:00 am till 2:00 pm, at 7:55 am. The rear hatch of the Jeep was filled with toxic, hazardous waste materials: mostly stains, strippers and other oil based paint products, some half full 5 gallon pails of latex paint (I know, it can be dried and dumped but do you know how long it takes to dry a half-full pail?), old gasoline, toxic yard chemicals an old monitor and a motorcycle battery. We arrived at the downriver collection location – 29.5 miles from our house – at 8:23. The line was long, really, really long, backed up in both directions further than the eye could see on a busy 4 lane street with a left turn lane. We sat for an hour inching only a short distance in that time. And we were still not even within sight of the entrance to the junior college serving as the collection site. Whereas we had an appointment elsewhere at 10:30 we left at 9:55 when it became clear we wouldn’t even get to the head of line by then. Roundtrip: 59 miles, total time invested, 2 hours.
Because I really wanted to get rid of this stuff in a responsible manner we returned towards the end of the day, thinking perhaps it wouldn’t be as busy. It wasn’t, but after another half hour drive we arrived back at the site at 1:15 pm to find a shorter but still very long line. OK, at least we could see the entrance from our place way way back in queue. As we inched forward we could see two uniformed officers at the traffic light where people were turning from both the right and left. They were doing…nothing. Not directing traffic, not even making sure that the cars turning right stayed in the right lane so there was somewhere for the cars turning left to go once the light changed and traffic cleared (no green turn arrow). As a result only one or two cars were getting through on each light.
But that’s hardly the worst of it. When we were just 3 cars from the head of the line (it is now 2:01 pm) the event organizers (Wayne County) drove a car across the entrance to the site and set up orange cones everywhere to block any additional entry. The guy who was next in line tried to persuade them to let him in, to no avail. It was 2:00 and that was the end of HHW collection day. Do I sound calm? Because I wasn’t. I was mad as a hatter. At the idiots running the event who couldn’t send someone out to place cones in the lane around 1:00 if they new they were shutting the gates at 2:00. At the officers who could have handled the traffic a whole lot better and especially at my township trustees.
When checking to find out when our local autumn HHW day was I discovered that our township board of trustees had decided not to participate in the waste collection days of our two adjacent communities as they always have in the past because it cost $36,000, an amount determined by the number of cars from our community that participated. Instead they decided it “wasn’t worth the cost” and would instead participate in the “free” county wide program. “Free” indeed. Our property taxes here are outrageous so please don’t tell me any of the government “services” provided are free. And by the way, any “service” that you can’t actually avail yourself of isn’t really a “service.”
Having been to these events many times before I can, off the top of my head, can think of a dozen things they could have done to make this work more effectively. Not only isn’t it rocket science, it isn’t even science. But progressives would have us believe that more government can fix everything.
So allow me to recap: since our township trustees decided to save $36k out of their $48.5 million budget by dropping out of local HHW programs I ended up making two round trips for a total 118 miles only to be sent home with all my toxic wastes in tow. Including travel time and the waiting in line Raj and I both wasted 4 and a half hours of our life. And I’m sure there are school children somewhere crying over the carbon footprint my gas guzzling Jeep Grand Cherokee equipped with a Hemi made in the execution of that fool’s errand.
I should have known better, what made me think bureaucrats directed by politicians could run an efficient hazardous waste collection site? Idiots, they can’t even be trusted with water.
I will locate someplace to dispose of my battery and gasoline, but where do you think the rest of this crap is going to end up? I’d really like to be a better person, but I’m not.
This is where it would have ended up anyway.
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
on my grandfathers farm it was called “incineration” ..generally in old 55 gallon oil drum...or a 5 ft deep fire pit
I had a similar experience. I had some low-level “hazardous waste” and my town was collecting it. The process was slow, they made me feel like a criminal (?????) and it cost me an arm and a leg. Horrible little Nazi bureaucrats.
I just slip the stuff into the trash now. Screw ‘em.
Reads simular to the beginning of the song Alice’s Restaurant.
When we got the recycling container and I asked about how many rechargeable batteries we were putting into the recycling container, my wife gave me that same look I have been getting for 39 years, and the question, "What do you mean, rechargeable?"
"Read the container cover," I said. "They don't take non-rechargeable batteries."
"So what am I supposed to do with the non-rechargeable batteries I brought with me?"
She did not like the answer, so now we have a bag of A, AA, AAA, and C batteries sitting on the dining room table. When I suggested that she put the non-rechargeable, non-recyclable batteries on the bed in the basement where she stores all the old clothes that should have been taken to Goodwill two years and haven't, I got that look again.
Somehow I just knew it would all end up being my fault again.
In my county recyclables were being dutifully collected but were just being disposed of like ordinary garbage. The market had collapsed so actual recycling was no longer efficient. The green gangsters threw a fit because the failure of the program was kept secret from the public who kept washing, flattening and segregating their recyclables thinking they would be rewarded in eco-heaven. People’s expectations of government run solutions are hilarious.
“I just slip the stuff into the trash now. Screw ‘em.”
As do I now.
I used to do the right thing, but once they started charging me a fee to do it at the taxpayer funded county site...I gave up. I figured my $5000 in annual property taxes was enough.
Now, all of that stuff goes in the regular rollout bin; carried to the central household garbage dump by city trucks; unloaded in the debris field along with the other uncaring “customer’s” forbidden items (sheetrock, cement blocks, defunct electric motors) plus tons of “loaded” baby diapers, glass bottles and aluminum cans; bulldozed into layers across the mega-acreage site...and will eventually be covered over with a thick layer of rich dirt and converted to a golf course. (It’s already been done here with a previous garbage dump.)
I’ve even been known to get rid of excess dirt and nuisance rocks in the same fashion.
OMG. Expect for the fact that we’ve been married for 40 years, you perfectly described my wife. We both had a good laugh. Thanks!
That’s not a recycling program. It’s a waste of time and money.
All my electronics will get put in the dumpster from this point forward.
Over the years I had collected a whole lot of those CFL bulbs because I didn’t know how to dispose of them (I remember hearing the rather ridiculously long procedure for doing so, so I gave it a pass). Finally, after amassing over a hundred of these little babies I found out that you could turn them in at any Lowe’s. I packed my two shopping bags full and headed out. There, I discovered that you had to individually wrap each bulb in a thin plastic baggy and drop them in the recycling container (with its requisite Dropbox handle and drawer. I was there for about an hour fumbling with baggies and bulbs (nice name for a recycling center).
Just lovely...
“So what am I supposed to do with the non-rechargeable batteries I brought with me?”
Take them to the next Trump rally and pitch them at any KlAntifas that show up?
I went through a local Leadership program where, at the conclusion, they suggested you get active on a board. I ended up on the Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful Board.
We have a problem with people illegally dumping out on the mesa. They will leave old appliances, bags of yard waste, tires, just about anything.
We came up with the idea of a recycling center. Manned mostly by volunteers, with one city employee to oversee, it was supposed to be open four days a week - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
It was very successful. People were dropping stuff off, recycling companies came around to pick it up. All was good.
The city employee started complaining about working Sundays, so they cut out the Sunday hours. Saturday was so busy, the staff was overwhelmed. The city, not the board, decided that Monday, Wednesday and Friday were better days.
Within a few months, no one was dropping stuff off. In my exit letter, I pointed out that most residents worked during the available hours and that some of the drop off in use of the center was due to the relief of pent up demand, but an ongoing program was needed.
The recycling center is now shut down.
The Mesa is once again being used to dump trash.
The only way to get rid of large items is to take them to the dump yourself, where they charge you by the pound. Residents get one free trip a month, but they have to bring a current water or electric bill to prove residency.
So now you have to have a truck, or a friend with a truck, get your item(s) into the truck, drive out to the dump, show your paperwork, drive up to the top of the dump, stand in ankle deep muck as you wrestle the items out of the truck, get said muck now stuck on your shoes in your friend’s truck, drive home, and clean the truck.
Or you can drive out onto the Mesa and dump it (illegally) for free.
We had a pit, 12’ x 12’ x 12’ with a narrow, sloping ramp to the bottom for make up air. logs, limbs, old tires, paint, broken lawn chairs, added diesel and the heat kept you fifty feet back. Oxidation! Anything will burn if you get it hot enough!
I had five old concrete blocks that were part of a retaining wall. Each were about the size of a loaf of bread. And over the years they had become too cracked to be useful.
So I called my local municipality. How do I dispose of these blocks, I asked. We don’t take them, I was told. But a company about 10 miles away will.
I called that company. Sure, we’ll take them, the guy said. It’ll cost you $110. The guy then explained that state and federal regulations required him to test everything he accepted. Thus the $110.
Needless to say, my concrete blocks ended up elsewhere.
Just hide it in the regular trash and be done with it.
39 years and you still haven’t learned? I think you’re spoofing us! I love the story anyway. My husband and I have been married for 47 years and the drama never ends..It would be rare if we were both on the same page at the same time!
In our borough, we had a private company handling recycling. they issued heavy blue plastic bags for co-mingled recyclables and picked them up curbside once a week with an ordinary high cube van.
The borough assembly saw a private company making money that they felt belonged to them. They fired the private company, bought a brand new special truck and a few thousand large blue bins to go with the special truck, hired several more people and raised taxes.
Immediately, they required us to separate out glass and bring it to the collection point ourselves because the special truck and special bins could not handle it (???). No pick up.
Two years later, the program is costing too much and will be cancelled.
Anyone in the market for a slightly used special truck and three thousand large blue plastic bins that go with it? You will have to pay for shipping from Alaska...
You throw them in the trash. Including the non-rechargeable lithium primary batteries.
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