FLORENCE, Ala. — Spring cleaning isn't just for homes and garages...it's for communities. The city of Florence is hosting a spring citywide cleanup as part of a Keep America Beautiful campaign. The cleanup is on March 18 from 8:00 a.m to noon.
You can register with a group to clean up a designated area or just show up at the Florence Lauderdale Coliseum for supplies. Registration in advance is commended. Click here to get more information and register.
Do you know what Household Hazardous Waste is?
The EPA considers household items that can catch fire, react or explode, hazardous household waste items once you are finished with them.
The City of Huntsville’s Green Team and Solid Waste Disposal Authority aims to help people dispose of their hazardous waste properly this Saturday.
Believe it or not, there are several items within your home that are considered hazardous household waste items such as the battery in your laptop or your smoke detector.
Even things as simple as a TV monitor. Items like these must be disposed of properly. If not, they could wreak havoc on the environment and the Huntsville community.
What are some of those items we should be looking out for?
“We take your old barbecue grill propane tanks, That's the one not many people know. Smoke detectors, we do those. A lot of people don't know to bring their lithium batteries here still yet and we do that,” said SWDA Facility Manager, Andrew Wilson.
“From fluorescent light bulbs, medical waste, oil. All these products that we use that make our life easier; fertilizers, chemicals, you know, gasoline. All these things we don't need them in the trash,” added Green Team Manager & City Landscape Manager, Nikole Sothers.
One of the main reasons we don't want these waste products to end up elsewhere is because elsewhere means places like our water systems.
“One thing is, some of these things are actually very volatile. And when you pack them all together, these chemicals mix together so [they] can pollute the air, the water, you know, and the earth. So by making sure that we dispose of it properly, we are keeping the environment clean,” Sothers said.
You may think, well, if I am getting this stuff into the normal waste bin, everything should be fine? But, that's not the case.
“Once it goes to the Solid Waste Disposal Authority, it still ends up in a landfill and it still remains at a landfill. So that water ends up in our water,” Sothers said.
“Also once it rains, it gets in your groundwater, it's going to rain. It's going to go to your ditches, it's going to go to your creeks. You have livestock that drink out of these creeks. You have people who irrigate their crops out of these creeks, and eventually, you're going to end up consuming it. So it's best to just dispose of it properly from the get-go,” Wilson said.
