Thank Goodness for Local Household Hazardous Waste Disposal Programs
Municipalities and Counties provide a wide range of services we rarely think about. We pay taxes for those services, but rarely need them. The beauty of our system of local government, though, is that those services are there when you do need them. At least they are there in most places. If our local elected officials care about the environment and other issues they are there, anyhow. That's why we need to vote in all local elections. You never know when you'll need forward thinking programs.
My city, St. Paul, MN, has a permanent disposal site for household hazardous waste. It's just 16 days until the movers arrive to take our stuff to our new townhome. In the 17 years we've been here, all sorts of stuff has accumulated. As I wrote before, a big-ass roll-off dumpster was the solution for a lot of it, but the old paint, half empty containers of various things, etc. has accumulated. "Well, I might use that again, and I can't throw it out with the trash.
And then, there are the two large oxygen tanks I needed when I suffered from cluster headaches. Since I never knew when I'd go into a period of headaches, and since breathing oxygen would knock them out after a few minutes, I bought two large oxygen tanks, since the oxygen places didn't seem to understand that I only needed it sometimes, but I never knew when that would be. They didn't have a system for dealing with intermittent need instead of a regular schedule of oxygen deliveries. So even though I had a prescription, I couldn't get them to leave tanks with me so I could use oxygen the next time the cluster headaches flared up. So, I had to buy the tanks. The oxygen service would refill them when needed. 5' tall big-ass green ones. "H" tanks they call them. Heavy. Unwieldy. Not covered by most insurance or Medicare, either.
Well, I don't get those headaches any more. Haven't had them for seven years. My neurologist said that they commonly disappear as people age into their late 60s. He was right. But, there those tanks were. I called the oxygen supplier to ask if I could return them. "Nope. We don't even use those big ones any more. Sorry." It's all oxygen concentrators and LOX these days. So, there I am with one tank that's half full and another that was completely full.
I'm not moving them, so what to do? Well, I found out that the hazardous waste site will take them if they're empty, but not if they're full. I couldn't sell them, and they're prescription-only, so I can't just give them to someone. I checked the dates on the tanks, and they would have to be re-certified before being filled again.
They're in my pickup bed right now, along with the old paint and half-empty cans of other things. Yesterday, I leaned them up against my chain link fence and cracked the valves to vent the oxygen into the atmosphere. I didn't open them all the way, because that's noisy. It took a couple of hours for the tanks to empty. Then, I closed the valves, put the safety caps back on, and loaded them into my truck. Tomorrow, it all goes to the disposal site. The steel tanks will end up being recycled as scrap metal, but scrap metal companies won't take them from private parties.
So, thanks to St. Paul and Ramsey County for having a place for me to take them and the other stuff.
All of the old computers and random electronics that have accumulated will go to another place tomorrow, as well, in another load. They'll charge me a small amount for some of it, but that's OK. That's not a government-run program, though. It's a private recycling company.
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