Cape city ready for hazardous waste collection

Households have plenty of hazardous waste, everything from fluorescent light bulbs and antifreeze to brake fluid and nail polish.

Cape Girardeau residents will be able to safely dispose of that hazardous waste Saturday at Arena Park in what will be the first such collection day in four years.

The drive-through event will be at the 4-H shelter from 9 a.m. to noon.

The collection will continue past noon if residents are still in line to drop off hazardous waste materials, public works director Stan Polivick said.

“It is a slow process, unfortunately,” he said. “It just takes time to get the stuff out of the vehicles.”

Some changes have been made in an effort to make it “a quicker unloading operation,” Polivick said. Even then, it’s a time-consuming process.

“We have to know what we are unloading and they have to put it in the right place,” he said.

City workers and the staff of the hazardous waste contractor will remove the items from the vehicles and “take all of that and sort it,” Polivick said.

In 2015, 323 people dropped off items for disposal totaling 34,000 pounds, he said.

“We would expect that to be bigger this time,” Polivick said. “We may be approaching 400 or 450 (people) this year.”

In addition to the hazardous waste, Cape Girardeau residents also will be able to drop off paper documents to be shredded.

VIP Industries will have a truck on site for collection of the paper, which will be taken back to VIP’s shop where it will be shredded.

Polivick said disposing of household hazardous waste is costly, but worth it.

“If people don’t have a way to get rid of it properly, then they will get rid of it improperly,” he said. As a result, “that stuff starts ending up in our streams and on our back roads,” he added.

“If we keep 35,000 to 40,000 pounds of bad stuff out of our environment,” Polivick said, “we feel like that is a worthwhile thing for us to do.”

Saturday’s collection effort will cost about $45,000, he said. The city received a $17,400 grant from the state to help fund it, but the city is footing the rest of the bill.

“We do these when we can get a grant through the Southeast Missouri Solid Waste District to help pay for it,” Polivick said.

The district covers Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Iron, Madison, Perry, St. Francois and Ste. Genevieve counties,

Most of the cost, $38,000 in this case, goes to the contractor to collect, sort, label and properly dispose of the hazardous waste, he said.

The city’s expenses include labor costs. “We pay some overtime for our guys to work,” Polivick said.

As many as 20 city employees may work the event. The hazardous waste contractor, Inter-Rail Systems of Scott City, will have 12 to 15 workers, he said.

The contractor will not accept some hazardous waste items, including tires, car batteries and cooking oil.

“Those are probably the biggest ones people want to bring to us,” Polivick said.

“The contractor that is doing this doesn’t have a place for those to go,” he said.

Polivick said driver’s licenses or other forms of identification will be checked to make sure those seeking to drop off hazardous waste items are Cape Girardeau residents.

“This is for Cape residents since Cape is paying for it,” he said.

“We are trying to stay on top (of hazardous waste disposal) and do the right thing,” Polivick said.

“It’s an important service and we fully expect a big turnout,” he said.

For a list of hazardous waste items that will be accepted, visit www.cityofcapegirardeau.org.

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