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Politics & Government

Arnold Residents Overwhelm City's First Household Hazardous Waste Drop-off Event

City administrator says response shows need for regular collections.

Arnold residents arrived in droves to get rid of old paint, fertilizer, pool chemicals and other household hazardous wastes at the city’s drop-off event Saturday at .

“I am absolutely pleased that all the people who showed up chose not to just discard the stuff improperly,” Ward 2 City Councilman Bill Moritz said. “The bad thing is we couldn’t take everybody’s stuff.”

City Administrator Matt Unrein said Arnold received a $30,000 grant from the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to have the event and pay for materials disposal.

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Unrein said the city took about 110 carloads of old paint, pesticides, used motor oil and other materials before shutting the event down because the city expended its grant funds with the disposal contractor.

“It far exceeded anyone’s expectations,” he said.

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Unrein said the city collected one and a half, 84-foot tractor-trailer loads of material before officials closed the event down about three
hours after starting. The event had been scheduled to run from 8:30 am to 2 p.m. but shut down about two and a half hours early.

“It was an overwhelming success and overwhelming failure all wrapped in one,” Unrein said. “We had a great response, and a lot of products were collected, However, we spent our grant money in all of about three hours. So we had a lot of people that were waiting in line to drop off their household hazardous waste materials and were unable to do so.”

Unrein said the city is scrambling to put together a follow-up event so those residents were unable to safely dispose of their household hazardous materials.

“We’re going to do all we can to accommodate all of those fine folks who went through their garage, and under their cupboards and through their sheds in the backyard, and collected all these items and brought them in to dispose of and were unable to do so.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average U.S. household can have as much as 100 pounds of hazardous waste stored throughout its home, garage and outbuildings.

Some of the most common items are paints, solvents, cleaning
chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fluorescent bulbs, motor oils and pool chemicals. Improper disposal of these materials can contaminate drinking water, harm the environment and create health hazards in the community.

Unrein said the response to the drop-off event showed there is a need for regular household hazardous waste collection in the city. He said
the city planned to pursue additional grant funding for this year and could turn the collection into an annual event.

“Once this first year is under our belt, I think this is something that the city could accommodate through our normal budget means or an annual grant process,” Unrein said.

“This first year we’re trying to accommodate five, 10, 20 years or so of used paints and herbicide or motor oils,” Unrein said. “Once we get this first year under our belt, the stuff people accumulate will be much less, and we should be able to accommodate that.”

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