St. Joseph County residents get year-round hazardous waste disposal

Jef Rietsma
·2 min read

CENTREVILLE – St. Joseph County officials agreed to renew a contract with Kalamazoo County for year-round disposal of household hazardous waste.

During their monthly board meeting Dec. 19, commissioners OK’d a proposal to continue the arrangement that started in May.

County Administrator Teresa Doehring said the service is provided to St. Joseph County residents and allows for drop-off of hard-to-dispose-of items such as electronics, automotive products, pesticides and herbicides, fuels, fire extinguishers, light bulbs, items containing mercury, household cleaners and paint. A complete list is available through a link at www.kalcounty.com.

The demand for such a service was realized based on the popularity of the county-sponsored, twice-a-year household hazardous waste collection and recycling of electronics.

The agreement with Kalamazoo County costs St. Joseph County $5,000 a year.

It allows St. Joseph County residents to drop off at no charge applicable items at the year-round collection site, located adjacent to Kalamazoo County Fairgrounds.

Doehring said 10 St. Joseph County households took advantage of the opportunity over the course of the past eight months. She noted demand for such a service appears to be greater than what the county offers every spring and fall at its fairgrounds-based collections, prompting the agreement with Kalamazoo County officials.

She said $4,500 of the original $5,000 allocation remains in the account based on 2023 usage by St. Joseph County households.

When the plan was developed back in the spring, Doehring said Pat Kulikowski, secretary of the St. Joseph County Solid Waste Committee, received several phone calls throughout the year from people who find themselves in a situation where they have a significant amount of items they wish to dispose of.

“Someone’s parents passed away or they’re moving, and they’re cleaning out a house and they’ve got these items that they want to get rid of … they don’t want to sit on them but they’ve got to wait until (one of) the two times that we offer it,” Doehring told commissioners in May. “Ordinarily, if (St. Joseph County residents) were to take something to Kalamazoo County, they’d have to pay to take it.”

In other action Dec. 19, commissioners:

  • Approved Patrick Hansma as county medical examiner. He replaces Joyce deJong, who accepted a position with Michigan State University.

  • Renewed the county’s annual contract with MSU Extension for agricultural and other services.

  • Reappointed Greg Dohm, Kathy Pangle, Robert Horton and Rick Shaffer to the county’s Planning Commission.

  • Agreed to appoint Teresa Doehring, Bronwyn Drost, Andrew Kuk and Jessica Miller to the county’s Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board.

  • Heard District Court’s annual report from Judge Rob Pattison.

  • Heard Circuit Court and Probate Court annual reports from court administrator Kathy Griffin.

This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: St. Joseph County residents get year-round hazardous waste disposal