Household hazardous waste drop-off draws tons of items

Carol Schrauben of Northville spend two hours on Saturday inching along in a lineup of cars to unload a variety of electronics at a household hazardous waste (HHW) disposal event in Taylor.

"I have handheld electronics, hard drives, cassette player, Roku fire sticks, calculators, net gear and electric cords, computer cords," Schrauben said.

A Wayne County resident, Schrauben said she found out about this recycling event while researching where to dispose of these items.

"I couldn't see myself putting this stuff in a landfill," Schrauben said.

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It appeared that plenty of other Wayne County residents couldn’t, either.

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Held at Wayne County Community College’s downriver campus in Taylor, county residents waited in their cars to wind their way through to drop off old flat screen and console televisions, printers, anti-freeze, chemicals, motor oil, paint and batteries, plus plenty of other household hazardous waste items.

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Wayne County’s Department of Public Services' Environmental Services, which organized the event, anticipated directing close to 2,000 cars through three drop-off lanes where recycling contract workers and volunteers would unload items.

This was the final, and often deemed the largest attended, household hazardous waste (HHW) event for this year.

At times cars were lined up bumper-to-bumper on streets leading into the college campus nearly a mile from the drop-off site. Wayne County has offered held HHW disposal events since 2005

Patrick Cullen, director of Environmental Services for Wayne County, said cars started lining up as early as 7:15 a.m. and that they anticipated collecting nearly 800,000 pounds of HHW.

"We have a huge turnout today and that's a really good thing because it means the residents want to do the right thing with their hazardous materials," Cullen said. "We are so appreciating that they (residents) are out here trying to manage the things that are in their homes that we don't want to end up in our landfills."

At the collection site, three lanes were set up all accepting the same items. Drivers pulled up with trunks or tailgates open and staffers and volunteers from ERG Environmental Services unloaded and sorted the items into bins. The bins were into semi-truck trailers and hauled back to ERG in Livonia — the county’s recycling contractor.

At each area, there were separate stops for chemicals, one for paints and one for electronics.

This is the third time Suzette Demorest of Taylor was dropping off household hazardous waste items.

"I've been in line for two hours," Demorest said. "I am dropping a lot of paint, oil, printers, iPad and a kindle," she said. "It's a good thing but the traffic needs to be addressed."

Michelle Pasquali of Lincoln Park was glad to be in the homestretch after getting in line around 8 a.m. and finally reaching the unloading area an hour and a half later. She was dropping off paints, stains, lawn chemicals, motor oil and gas stabilizer.

Morris Smith said he received an email about the event. He was disposing of rechargeable batteries such as those used for lawn equipment. The Romulus resident was also dropping off "mostly electronics," he said.

The vast majority of all the items collected on Saturday will be recycled., Cullen said, “including items such as latex paints, which are 100% recyclable.”

Electronics that may have precious metals, Cullen said, are recovered from the contractor who does the recycling of all electronics collected. Microwaves, TV's, copiers and other electronics collected are disassembled by the contractor.Computer hard drives are "erased and then are physically shredded” by the contractor who is certified to do so."Our whole goal is to keep as much out of landfills as possible," Cullen said.

Wayne County also has a free app where you can enter items you wish to recycle and know where to take them.

The county also offers HHW voucher program for residents. With the voucher, residents can take household hazardous waste material directly to the county's contractor site in Livonia on their own schedule.

"What's nice about it is that it is convenient for them," Cullen said. "They don't have to come to one of these large-scale collection events and wait in line to drop off their materials. They can take their materials on their own schedule. "For information on the voucher program, Wayne County residents can call 734-326-3936.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Household hazardous waste drop-off draws tons of items