Episode 8: We Are Accepting New Items At the October Household Hazardous Waste Drop-off Event!

Citizens have asked and we are listening. We will be accepting PE-1 and 2, type plastics, glass (all colors) and aluminum cans at the Oct. 18, household hazardous waste drop off event from 8 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. at either Camp Ketona (121 County Shop Road) or Camp Bessemer (3295 King St.) Hana Berres, the education and training manager for the County's Stormwater Program explains the details, and we have exciting news about 2026!

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 0:10

Welcome everybody to the Jefferson County Podcast for the People. I'm your host today, Helen Hayes. I'm the Director of Public Information for Jefferson County. And with me today, I have a return guest. She's one of our favorites always. We have Hanna Berres, who is the education and training manager for Jefferson County Stormwater Program. So welcome, Hanna. Thank you for being with us again today. We have some new things to talk about with the upcoming October Hazardous Waste Day. So, first, let's just talk about when the day is and where it's going to be.

Speaker 1 0:46

We have two event locations at our Jefferson County Highway Maintenance Camps. The event will take place on October 18th, 2025, which is this Saturday, the third Saturday of October. The two site locations will be at our Camp Bessemer site location. Oops, sorry, 3295 King Street, 35023. The second site location will be Camp Ketona. That's 131 County Shop Road, 35217.

unknown 1:16

Right.

Speaker 1:17

And we'll have those in the show notes. And we also have those events on our social media pages as well. So and we've included them in the Jefferson County eNewsletter. So people should know, but there's some new things that you had us add to the flyers for this event. And that is we are accepting PE1 plastics, glass bottles, and aluminum cans. I'm excited about this, but I want to start with the PE1 plastics. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 1:49

A PE1 plastic, think of if you're going to be able to drink out of a bottle. So it's going to be your soda bottles, your water bottles, those are going to be primarily your PE, uh PET1s. Bring those. What we ask, though, is that you rinse them out and try to keep them as what we call clean as possible. So the waste stream where they're going to go to has a better chance of being able to recycle that plastic. If it's old, muddy and yucky, there's a lot more processing that goes with it. So please just try your best to bring us as clean as possible those. In addition, though, we are going to take PET2, which would be your laundry containers, those that when you buy laundry detergent. So those containers are also going to be uh included to accept and your Milo's tea, your milk jugs, those kind of things.

Speaker 2:39

Yeah, that's what I was about to ask. Milo's tea. Is that a PE1 plastic?

Speaker 1 2:44

That uh I believe that's a PE2 plastic. So we will take it. Okay. And milk jugs, when we talk about milk jugs, we're talking about the plastic containers. The cardboard containers have a lining that is not um that makes it not accessible for the PET2. But if you bring it and we can't recycle it, we will dispose of uh what you bring us.

Speaker 3:09

If I have like an old plastic water bottle I used to bring I used to use on the river, I can bring that, right?

Speaker 1 3:16

Absolutely.

Speaker 3:18

Okay. And we already covered the tea jugs. I can bring my husband's tea jugs. So we got that. And then laundry detergeant, those big plastic things. I have one sitting in my laundry room. We can bring that. That's PET.

Speaker 1 3:31

Yep.

Speaker 3:32

All right. Now let's move along to glass bottles. Yes.

Speaker 1 3:39

Anybody's a wine drinker out there. Yeah, or a beer drinker. Or if you have an old-time Coca-Cola bottle, right? Um, bring that as well. And it doesn't matter the color. We take all colors and uh we just ask that it's as whole to a piece. If it's a little crack, no problem. These items are going to be crushed down into smaller pieces of glass and used as commodities in other waste streams.

Speaker 4:08

Okay. But we do we want the glass to be cleaned out too, right?

Speaker 1 4:12

If possible, yeah. We try to make everything as clean as possible. Uh and one of the things, one of the reasons we really want the glass clean right now is the agency that's uh providing us an in-kind donation is glass half full. And they have a glass crusher that's coming to the Birmingham area. And so until then, the people collecting the glass are storing it in a safe location. So what we have, what they have been collecting hasn't been crushed, but it will be very soon, just waiting on the logistics of getting their glass crusher to Birmingham.

Speaker 4:47

That's very exciting news. A number of people in the Birmingham areas that will be able to do that. So that that's great information. All right, aluminum cans. That's pretty simple, right?

Speaker 1 4:59

Exactly. So bring your aluminum. And the thing people ask about aluminum, if it has a lining, then we don't want it. So if it's out of your chickpea container, if the inside of that can, which is I believe 10, we're sticking with aluminum. If you do bring 10, depends on if it has that lining or not, is uh whether or not we can be able to recycle it and put it back into the waste stream as other commodities. We just don't have a current vendor or anybody that can manage the lined cans at this point.

Speaker 5:36

Okay, so that covers all the new things: PE one and two plastics, glass, and aluminum cans. Now let's remind people of some of the things for the hazardous waste day that we normally accept. I know tires or one,, old paint cans, aerosols, fertilizers, anything that may be sitting sitting around in your garage that's old like that, people can bring that, right?

Speaker 1 6:04

Correct. Uh and don't forget about your batteries. So whether it's a hearing battery all the way up to your vehicle and , right? Um, all batteries, such as that, light bulbs. So bring us your light bulbs, ballast. Uh, we pretty much say bring everything but your firstborn child, because we will take your kitchen sink if you need to bring it.

Speaker 6:27

Okay, but no firstborn children.

Speaker 1 6:29

Um, unruly for you. We certainly don't need to manage them. So, yeah. And what we try also, because people ask us this question how do we prepare for these events? And what I want you to do is put like items together. So if you have small appliances, put them in one box. Your uh batteries and light bulbs and chemicals and things like that, put them in another box. We do have several stations. When you pull up, you will be asked very minor information. And one of those things, we will ask, what did you bring? And the reason why we do that is we do sort of like a candy land uh post-it note thing for the site. So depending on what you tell us, we're gonna drop you off at various stations. So we have television and small electronics, the chemicals and what we consider hazardous ways, like the cylinders and paints, automotive, those kind of stuff, pool cleaners. And then we have a large appliances. So all those doesn't matter if it's got Freon in it, bring it to us. And then we also have tires, make sure there's no rims. Uh, and it doesn't matter the size, remember, these are household quantities, right? So even think about the little red wagon, if that tire, bike tires, anything like that. We do on-site paper shredding. So while we ask that you don't stay there for on-site, your item goes into a trash can. That trash can goes onto the recycle truck and it will be recycled within that event.

Speaker 8:07

Uh and then yeah, I've seen them no, I've seen them shredding that stuff on site, but sometimes we get too many people, and so we can't have it holds up traffic if you want to sit there and watch and promise you we're not interested in your old papers. They're shredded and they're they're gone away. You know, I've worked the line at a couple of these events, unloading the backup truck. So I would just say the liquid stuff, if people could just put that and make sure it's contained so that it doesn't leak all over the people unloading the stuff. That would be nice.

Speaker 1 8:43

Yeah, be kind to our our staff. So we have there's Jefferson County staff from various departments that assist us with this initiative. And we like you are trying to get you out as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. Again, the whole reason why we have these items are um it's unsafe to put them in a residential landfill. And what we're also trying to do is save our landfills for longevity. Nobody wants us to build another landfill. Uh, and we're trying to divert these items so that we can make the landfill, our residential landfill last longer. Uh, and also make it a safe for the workers because people don't think about when you have fabuloso and you have ammonia, right? And they squish together, it's like bleach and ammonia. When they squish together, it creates a uh toxic gas. So while you may not have a problem, think about everybody else down your street that may be shoving it and stuffing into the bottom of a trash bag.

Speaker 9:39

Absolutely, 110%. And we we usually have a great turnout at the event in April. And so that's one reason we added this second event in October. We want to see more people come out and take advantage of it. Bring us your stuff, it's free. You don't even have to get out of your car. You guys have really thought about the traffic patterns that go through the camp so that people can just drive up, drive in, and then drive on out. And we're we're constantly working on that, on that traffic flow pattern. But these events in October have a little lighter attendance. So if you miss the one in April, this is a great time to get rid of your stuff. And we'll we'll try to get this podcast out early enough so people can know not to throw away that laundry detergent plastic nail in their trash and they can save it and bring it to us. I know you're working on 2026 events. Any kind of preview things that people can look forward to in 2026?

Speaker 1 10:37

Yeah, so because these events are so well attended, we're going to host two additional electronic television paper shred drop-offs. So we'll have what we call smaller events available January last weekend at the zoo. Second weekend in March, we'll be in the Enslee area at our uh Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility. Uh, April the 25th, I believe, is our uh spring household hazardous waste day, second weekend in May, second weekend in June, two more electronics. We'll be downtown Birmingham uh in front of Birmingham City Hall Linn Park in September, second weekend. And then the third weekend in October of 26, uh, we'll be back with our fall event. We're trying to make them as consistent as possible. And I do want y'all to know since y'all are showing up and turning out, that is showing my bosses when I say, hey, we need to have more. When y'all show up, they recognize I run these numbers, I track these numbers in attendance. And simply because y'all show up, they want to have more. So I strongly encourage you to invite your friends if y'all didn't know about it. Um, again, we try to get you in and out as quickly as possible. So next year in 26, we'll have seven different opportunities to get rid of your televisions. Doesn't matter if it's a CRT monitor or not, small electronics, on-site paper shredding, and two additional uh hazardous waste days. We are looking into other alternatives or offer them more often, but it all boils down to is the community coming? Takes a lot of money for us and resources, getting our sites ready, um, paying staff overtime for the weekends. Uh commissioners don't mind. Our county manager's office don't mind. However, uh, we can only do it if y'all show up and help us. So we're trying to save uh the life of the landfill. We're trying to give people opportunities to do the right thing. So we appreciate y'all coming out and we just hope that again, invite family and friends and y'all, y'all start storing it up now.

Speaker 12:44

You can come and drop stuff off and then go watch football in October 17th.

Speaker 1 12:48

So we did it on the third weekend. It is an Alabama, Tennessee game. However, those games are always in the evening because let me tell you, when you get voluntary you have to work, I don't need the camp staff and other staff coming after me because they had to work during football. So we recognize it. We're in the south, we understand we got to work around football. So third weekend, y'all come out and see us.

Speaker 13:13

All right, Hannah. Thank you so much for your time. We'll put all these details in the show notes and they'll also be on our website, jccal.org. And for the 2026 events, we'll have flyers like we did last year. We'll be doing all the things, the TV ads, stuff on the internet, you know, stuff in our app so that people will know when these dates are, and so they can just save up their stuff and bring them out. And uh, we really do appreciate our citizens and the participation has been fabulous, and we do want to see more. So if you guys show up, we can do more. Hannah, thanks again, and we appreciate it. If anybody has any other ideas or topics that they'd like to hear about on the Jefferson County Podcast for the people, shoot me an email. My email address is hayesha y s h at jccal.org. Love to hear from you, and we will see you next time on the Jefferson County Podcast for the people.