Hazardous waste collection helps residents clean up

MACHIAS – On Saturday, more than 100 Washington County households from Steuben to Calais got rid of environmentally unfriendly things that had filled their barns and basements for years.

The process, held in Washington County for the first time, was easy. Residents filled out forms – no names attached – in their town offices, then showed up Saturday morning at the Machias Bay Area Transfer Station with all manner of household hazardous waste.

At first, the line to hand over cans and boxes of who-knows-what snaked through the lot and back to the street. Then it slowed to a steady stream of people who were grateful for the chance to at last toss out all the bad stuff.

In all, 110 households turned in 326 units of waste. One unit equaled either five gallons or 10 pounds.

“There are now hundreds of pounds of pesticides, and thousands of gallons of paints, oil, degreasers, acids and many other toxics that will not end up in our groundwater, wetlands or food chain,” said Judy East, who presided over the pickup on Saturday.

The materials accepted included oil-based paint, turpentine or varnish, brake fluid, paint remover or thinner, charcoal lighter fluid, pool and photo chemicals, antifreeze, transmission fluid, oven or drain cleaners, unused pharmaceuticals, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.

At the receiving end was Clean Harbors Environmental Services, a company based in Braintree, Mass., that is licensed to handle community drop-off days such as this.

Washington County residents could drop off their waste for free as part of an initiative of the Washington County Council of Governments.

In the planning since February, the project was a virtual copycat of what had been organized one year earlier for both Mount Desert Island and the Ellsworth area in Hancock County.

The project also gained early support from the Cherryfield-based Down East Resource Conservation and Development Council.

The waste roundup was actually a two-day program for towns across the county, starting with a July 9 roundup in Calais.

The Machias event, held three weeks later, brought in three times the amount of waste that the Calais event had received.

East, who is the Calais-based director of the council of governments, was thrilled with both occasions.

“This is a first-year event,” she said as she waved cars through the line. “It was a bit of a scramble to organize, but we’ve done it.”

“We’ve got old car batteries by the dozens, and a fair amount of pesticide,” said Gary Edwards of the Down East council.

Frank Phillion of Clean Harbors, who was the first to receive the waste, wore plastic gloves and kept his humor through the morning.

“We’ve got everything,” he said. “Diazanon, Triox vegetation killer, rose dust and lots of ‘methel-ethel’ death stuff.”

The cost to set up a single-day drop at a transfer station was about $4,200, East said. The costs are being covered largely by the towns that agreed earlier this spring and summer to support the project.

Residents of any of the participating towns got to drop off their goods for free. Others, coming from non-participating towns, paid $20 per unit.

People came Saturday from 13 participating towns – Alexander, Calais, Cutler, Dennysville, Edmunds, Jonesboro, Machias, Marshfield, Northfield, Roque Bluffs, Steuben, Whiting and Whitneyville.

Three people who live in towns that did not participate paid their own way. One Eastport resident paid $60 and another from East Machias paid $40 to drop off their waste. Another person came from Machiasport.

The largest participating town was Machias, which produced 130 units of material. A fair amount of that came from the town itself, East noted.

Some of the bigger items to come in included two gallons of chlordane, more than 15 pounds of DDT, 25 gallons of fungicide, loads of other assorted acids and pesticides, and more than 100 large batteries.