Countywide : Public Roundup Slated for Hazardous Wastes

With an average of six to seven phone calls a day from residents asking where they can dump toxic materials such as old paint cans and household cleaners, officials are planning the county’s third and last “toxic roundup” for the year.

Scheduled for Nov. 2 in Laguna Niguel, the free roundup was prompted partly by inquiries from residents, who now have “a heightened awareness” of the problems of hazardous-material disposal, said Robert Griffith, head of the county’s hazardous-materials program.

A toxic fire at an Anaheim fertilizer warehouse this summer, along with two earlier toxic roundups, also helped fuel that awareness, Griffith said. A year ago, it was uncommon for residents to ask how to dispose of their old paint cans and pesticides, he said.

The parking lot of Chet Holifield Federal Building at 24000 Avila Road, commonly known as the Ziggurat, a few miles south of the La Paz Road exit on the Santa Ana Freeway, will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 2.

Workers will collect all materials--except waste oil, explosives or radioactive materials--and transport them to the Casmalia Resource Management, a chemical treatment facility in Santa Barbara County. Before taking all the drums to Casmalia, however, workers will first try to reduce the volume of materials, neutralize them and incinerate that which can be burned, Griffith said. The remaining drums will be buried at Casmalia.

Orange County does not have a permanent disposal site for hazardous materials. Residents often throw such materials out with other trash, which then is taken to county dumps and has the potential to cause environmental damage, such as contaminating water supplies.

During the county’s first roundup in Huntington Beach April 20, workers collected 292 55-gallon drums, containing mostly paint, from 582 cars. A second collection on July 13 in Anaheim took in almost twice the volume of toxic wastes: 569 drums from 700 cars.