5 Landfills Will Accept Household Toxic Waste

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts approved a pilot program last week that will allow disposal of most hazardous household wastes at the Palos Verdes Landfill in Rolling Hills Estates.

By early autumn, South Bay residents will be able to take toxic materials such as insecticides and disinfectants to the Palos Verdes Landfill as an alternative to throwing them away illegally or storing them, which can be dangerous. There are four other county landfills involved in the program.

“We want to do something now so we won’t have to keep telling people there’s nothing you can do legally” to dispose of hazardous materials, said Charles Carry, chief engineer and general manager for the county Sanitation Districts.

The program, which will begin in three to four months, will allow residents to bring up to either five gallons or 50 pounds of waste materials that are considered hazardous to the landfills for disposal, said division engineer Kieran Bergin.

Hazardous household wastes include gasoline, motor oil, insecticides, ammonia, rug cleaners, paint thinner, tile and toilet bowl cleaners, swimming pool chemicals, most paints, fingernail polish and remover, kerosene and antifreeze.

“You can’t store them in the garage, (or) put them in the sewer or the trash,” Carry said. “There is the potential for harm to garbage collectors if they are buried in the trash and some potential for explosion in landfills.”

The pilot program will accept all hazardous materials except paint, because it is “relatively innocuous” and can be tossed out with regular trash if it is allowed to dry first, Bergin said.

The landfills will be open to residents on a rotating basis, with only one landfill open at a time, Bergin said. A schedule of the days and hours when hazardous materials will be accepted has not yet been set, he said.

Storage of the wastes at the landfills will be temporary, Bergin said. Flammable materials will be placed in specially sealed drums and transported to incinerators in other states. Non-flammable materials will be transported to remote landfills in central California that are designed for long-term hazardous waste disposal.

Previously, there was no approved method for disposal of hazardous wastes by residents of Los Angeles County. The alternatives were to store the materials--considered dangerous by health officials--or to throw them away illegally with ordinary trash.

The other four landfills in the program are the South Gate Transfer Station in South Gate, the Puente Hills Landfill in Whittier, the Spadra Landfill in Walnut and the Calabasas Landfill in Agoura.

Funding for the program, which officials estimate will cost between $300,000 and $400,000, will come from county landfill operating funds, Bergin said.

Officials expect the program will be expanded to include other landfills by 1989, when the state begins offering funds to counties that operate toxic household waste disposal programs, Bergin said.