By Helen Venada, San Juan County Hazardous Waste Coordinator
How about adding an inventory of your unwanted chemical products to your spring cleaning chores? San Juan County Solid Waste Division is sponsoring these upcoming hazardous waste collections at county solid waste facilities (Other islanders are, of course, also invited to participate in these collections.):
ORCAS ISLAND, Saturday, April 30th, 11am to 2pm
LOPEZ ISLAND, Sunday, May 1st, noon to 3pm
SAN JUAN ISLAND, Saturday, May 7th, from 10 am to 2pm
Hazardous waste includes chemical products that are flammable, toxic, corrosive, or reactive. Please round up your unwanted gasoline and other fuels, solvents, thinners, oil-based paints and stains, pesticides and other poisons, aerosols, adhesives, wood preservatives, mercury-bearing thermometers, cleaning products and fluorescent light tubes for the collection. Compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are now collected for recycling at each island’s OPALCO office on an ongoing basis! Recycle used motor oil, antifreeze, and vehicle batteries at your island’s solid waste facility during regular open hours.
Households will be charged a minimum fee of $12.00 for up to 200 pounds of hazardous waste (the equivalent of about 25 gallons); quantities over that will cost an additional $.06/pound. We ask that you solidify your waste LATEX paints and dispose of them with your regular trash (mix sawdust or kitty litter with latex paint until it is not pourable). Latex paints brought to county collections will cost an additional $2.00/gallon.
Businesses must pre-register by calling 370-0503 and will be invoiced for their own disposal costs.
In response to recent community surveys to export less waste to the mainland, we will be emphasizing REUSE at each of these collections. Please sort out any of your items that you think someone else might find useful (labeled and in original containers) and don’t forget to “shop” at the collection events for just that something that you’re looking for!
If you want to help this effort, we’re looking for a few good volunteers at each site. Please call us to sign up at 370-0503.
Thank you for your continued support and for your efforts to prevent contamination to our water, soils, and air while making your households and businesses safe from potentially hazardous materials.
This is an awesome service, I am grateful! Can anyone tell me, is it true there is nowhere on the island to recycle household batteries? Suggestions?
By “household batteries” you mean items like AA, camera batteries, and the like, you used to be able to recycle them at Radio Shack. But with Radio Shack going out of business that option will be lost. Perhaps Kyle will offer the same service when he opens his new store.
Ace Hardware on San Juan Island, through their affiliation with the Anacortes Ace store, has been able to offer free battery recycling on San Juan. I am not aware of any battery recycling options on Orcas or Lopez at this time. There is a mainland option: Pacific Power Batteries, 107 E. Cedar, Mount Vernon, 360-419-3190. They collect batteries for recycling. They charge $1.00 per pound for this service.