Regarding the Aug. 27 letter, “Mission is to remove hazardous waste”:
With 25 years in hazard waste management, including establishing the first household hazard waste programs in Washington and Idaho, I was shocked to read Solid Waste Management Division director Sam Chandler’s comments. His comment, “For instance, we often get pesticide mixtures in window cleaning containers or a mix of solvents in paint thinner cans. All of us would rather have these toxic brews buried in a hazardous waste landfill…” This contradicts the Research Conservation Recovery Act and/or the Environmental Protect Act’s laws banning the disposal of liquids in landfills.
The letter says, “All containers will have to be tested to ensure that a homeowner did not put something in other than what the label states.” How can this be accomplished when, first, there are no chemists employed at the facility, and secondly, they do not have an atomic absorption unit, a gas chromatograph, or even a simple flash-point determining device. To top that, they do not even have a fume hood in the facility. The employees have been bulking flammables into drums to be shipped off-site to be burned in a cement kiln in California, whereas pesticides have been bulked and sent to an incinerator in Chicago. The long-term health effect of this packaging process could be the biggest liability the county has exposed itself to.
The signs at the Solid Waste Transfer facilities in Snohomish County read, “Reuse and Recycle.” The Herald’s Aug. 14 article states “Unopened cans of motor oil, antifreeze, aerosol paint, wood putty, oil paints and arts-and-crafts materials are all among the items that are not (circulated back into the community).”
Mr. Chandler’s comment, “That’s potentially a liability that we don’t really want to incur,” directly contradicts the county’s encouragement to “Recycle and Reuse.”
GARY WILGUS, President
FBN Enterprises
Marysville
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