Conservation Corner: Here's how to dispose of toxic household waste safely in Spartanburg
It’s almost spring, and just in time for your spring cleaning projects, we invite you to bring all of your old, outdated, expired, even unidentifiable hazardous and toxic waste products to Spartanburg County’s 15th Annual Household Hazardous Waste Collection Event and Rain Barrel Sale.
This year, our event will be held on Saturday, March 25, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. at the County’s Administration Building, 366 N. Church St. in Spartanburg. As a sustained hazardous waste collection event, we are proud to be a leader in safe disposal options for a wide variety of common toxic chemicals found in many homes. Our event is free and open to all Spartanburg County residents. We cannot accept materials from businesses, commercial agricultural operations, or waste generated from outside of Spartanburg County.
The event’s history is one of true partnership. Representatives from Upstate Forever, Master Gardener’s Association of the Piedmont, and the Spartanburg Men’s Garden Club approached Spartanburg County and the City of Spartanburg about disposal options for garden chemicals. This caused the county to budget for the first collection event in 2009, contracting with an outside hazardous waste management firm to handle all products. The first event’s great success has led to an ongoing community effort with dozens of volunteers from local nonprofits and service groups, city and county staff, and funding through a combination of in-kind services, grants, and county funds from the Solid Waste and Stormwater departments.
We also were fortunate to have Goldmine Rain Barrels as a partner, with rain barrels available for purchase (cash or check) at each annual event. Thanks in part to the efforts of our partner organizations and overwhelming public support, we have been able to continue offering this event as a convenient disposal option for products that need special handling.
Hazardous waste coming from residential households that is accepted at the annual event includes fertilizers, pesticides, pool chemicals, mercury-containing items like fluorescent tubes and bulbs, batteries (including lithium and alkaline), all types of paint, solvents, cleaners, automotive fluids, propane and other gas cylinders/tanks, and more. The full list can be found on Spartanburg County’s website and in our ads, or contact us directly with specific questions.
Unfortunately, we are unable to accept medications and medical waste, electronics, explosives and ammunition, asbestos-containing materials, and radioactive items at this event, but feel free to call us at 864-949-0211 if you need other disposal options.
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While the Spartanburg County Wellford Landfill is a lined, Class 3 disposal facility, and is permitted to accept hazardous waste in residential quantities from Spartanburg County homes with some minor handling instructions (please contact us for more information), we prefer that residents take advantage of our annual event as we strive to keep toxic materials out of the landfill as much as possible. In the event that you are unable to dispose of chemicals and hazardous products at our event, landfilling is strongly preferable to dumping these toxic items down the drain.
If you haven’t taken advantage of previous household hazardous waste collection events, I encourage you to take time over the coming weeks to clean out your garages, carports, storage buildings, cabinets, and gardening sheds and load up all those outdated and unused chemicals to safely dispose of them.
Dumping chemicals down the drain contaminates drinking water and wastewater, impacting human health, groundwater and wildlife It also leads to costly and extensive additional water treatment methods and damaged pipes and infrastructure.
On arrival at the event, present your Spartanburg County identification, stay in your vehicle, and drive through our “drop-off” line, where trained volunteers and staff will remove items from your vehicle and store them safely onsite before transporting them to permitted recyclers or toxic waste disposal sites. No materials accepted at this event wind up in our local landfills or waterways, and many items can be recycled and repurposed, saving valuable natural resources and giving toxic chemicals new life.
We look forward to 15 more years of continued efforts to help residents with safe and convenient disposal options for all their waste materials!
Jes Sdao is Spartanburg County's recycling coordinator.
This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Conservation Corner: how dispose toxic household waste in Spartanburg
