Toxics Drive Yields Big Bill for Burbank

The disposal cost of household hazardous waste collected in Burbank over the weekend is about $46,000 over budget, city officials said Tuesday.

Battalion Chief M.W. Johnson of the Burbank Fire Department said he learned Tuesday that the bill for disposing of the materials collected during the city’s first toxic roundup is $126,409. The City Council had allocated $80,000 for the project.

Johnson said that more hazardous materials than expected were deposited at the Burbank Public Service Yard during Saturday’s daylong collection.

“We had a fixed cost on the service, but it was based on the amount of gallons and pounds that were collected,” Johnson said.

Members of 616 households deposited toxic substances at the site, Johnson said, and some brought multiple loads. In addition, toxics were picked up at the homes of 159 elderly and handicapped people.

The city amassed 186 55-gallon drums of corrosive liquids and solids, paint products, flammable solids and poisons; 13 55-gallon drums of oil-related products; 600 pounds of oxidizers; 13 bags of asbestos; 4,872 gallons of paint, and 59 car batteries, he said.

“It was a lot more than we anticipated, but we are very glad to see it,” Johnson said. “We were obviously overwhelmed by the amounts.

“A lot of old pesticides and things had been in people’s garages for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “We had problems identifying some of the stuff and had to use chemical analysis to decide what it was so we could package it properly.”

The identifying, packaging and transporting of the waste was handled by Disposal Control Services, whose employees worked overnight to clear the collection site of the toxic materials by Sunday morning.

The substances were shipped to five sites, including an incinerator facility in Louisiana, special landfills in Santa Barbara County and Palo Alto and a lab in Chula Vista, Johnson said.

Assistant City Manager Steve Helvey said he expects the City Council to approve the additional money to pay for the cleanup.

“That’s what city governments are for--to provide these kinds of services to the residents,” Helvey said.

State law prohibits disposing of household toxics through normal public trash collection, so many citizens--uncertain how to get rid of the materials--store them in their garages, Johnson said. Such storage is hazardous, he said.