“It’s actually a blast room, if something explodes.” Containers with unknown contents are carted into a smaller room with another thick door. For products that came in labeled, workers run further tests and aggregate like substances together, preparing them for shipment to a processor.įor more nebulous liquids, things get real technical-and perhaps unnerving. Laminated sheets with lists of chemicals (and what they react with) are taped to a steel table. Just inside the hazardous waste building, at the west end of the 30-year-old Metro South campus, drums and buckets full of labeled substances occupy a room with bright red walls, metal grating floors, and thick steel doors. That tells them whether a container of motor oil also contains gasoline mixed in and must be separated, for example. These materials are further analyzed to confirm their contents, using tools like a PID (photoionization detector) meter, which measures volatile organic compounds offgassing from the liquid. The technicians separate and aggregate what they know to be flammable liquids, aerosols, motor oil, antifreeze, paint. There, household hazardous waste technicians load the materials onto a cart, where the filtering begins. When a vehicle arrives, if its material is deemed potentially hazardous at the check-in gate, an AFSCME-represented traffic controller directs the customer to the hazardous waste area. “We have to have some kind of knowledge on what everything is,” Carstensen says. At the transfer station, workers must identify what a substance is, and prepare the material for transportation to a downstream processor. It could be flammable, corrosive, poisonous, explosive. That typically means there is a toxic or otherwise environmentally damaging substance contained within the product, and it requires special treatment. Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Their job at Metro South is to handle materials that aren’t allowed to go into a landfill, per U.S. Carstensen serves on its executive board, and Lee served as an elected delegate at AFSCME’s international convention in Philadelphia in July. Both are active in their union, AFSCME Local 3580. Lee and Carstensen are two of the 15 household hazardous waste technicians at the Metro South transfer station. That’s when Cheyenne Lee and Dana Carstensen get to become chemical detectives. And more often than you might think, unlabeled containers holding unknown liquids are dropped off. It also gets its fair share of lightbulbs, medical sharps and other identifiable discards. | PHOTOS BY COLIN STAUB On the job with AFSCME Local 3580: You name it, Metro’s hazardous waste workers handle it. The job combines science, a strong stomach, and a whole lot of caution.Īt the Metro South transfer station in Oregon City, the hazardous waste department handles a lot of paint. See a list of Oregon Year-Round Household Hazardous Waste Facilities in other counties.CARSTENSEN’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES: Dana Carstensen and his fellow hazardous waste technicians handle a lot of unusual items, and some they collect in a back room shelf, from antique cleaning products to jars of snakes in brine. and any special instructions Oregon Year-Round Household Hazardous Waste Facilities Please call for items accepted, depot locations, times when open. Some hazardous waste items can be taken to a local transfer station year-round. (The flyer is issued in late spring - and is available in Spanish) Year-Round Collection Summer 2026 Dahl Disposal Service - ToledoĮmail Solid Waste or call 54 if you would like to be added to the email list for the annual HHW event flyer.Summer 2025 North Lincoln Sanitary - Lincoln City.Summer 2024 Thompson's Sanitary Service - Newport.Summer 2023 Dahl Disposal Service - Waldport.Lincoln County Solid Waste District works with your local hauler to host an annual Household Hazardous Waste Event on the following Schedule: Annual Household Hazardous Waste Collection Events
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