NORWAY – Residents in Norway and Paris who want to throw out toxic substances, such as paint and pesticides, have one chance a year to dispose of them at the local transfer station.
On Saturday, Sept. 17, the transfer station on 39 Brown St. in Norway will accept most hazardous waste between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Alison McCrady, general manager for Norway-Paris Solid Waste Inc., said people with last names starting with letters between A through L should come from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and everyone else should follow. Businesses are not allowed.
This will cut down on wait time, she said.
This is the 10th year the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments has organized the Household Hazardous Waste Day for towns in the region. The council is also overseeing collections in Bethel, Mexico and Wilton in the next few weeks. People who don’t live in these towns but wish to deposit waste need to obtain a voucher from their towns. Also, everyone needs a valid dump sticker before the waste day.
Over the years, the number of people depositing hazardous waste at these events has increased, which is a huge relief to McCrady.
“For me as a person who works with municipal waste all the time, it is safer for me,” McCrady said. If hazardous waste is mixed in with regular garbage, workers can have reactions. “It makes it safer for those of us who work at the transfer station and the plant where the garbage gets burned, and for those who work at the landfill.”
Ferg Lea, president of Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, said regional collections of hazardous waste, while helpful to residents, are inadequate. To ensure more opportunities for people to drop off rat poison, mercury thermometers, oven cleaner, brake fluid and so forth, a new permanent collecting facility opens today in Lewiston. He said the facility will be open Sept. 10 and 17 and the first three Saturdays in October and November, before closing for the winter. It will reopen in April.
Brian Fons, president of Environmental Projects, the company that collects the waste, said he and his staff separate all the waste products and ship them to various facilities around the region for disposal or recycling
For more information about what items are allowed, phone the transfer station at 743-8518.
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