Annals of Safe Waste Disposal

(A note mainly to myself, but please read along.) As a result of some delayed Spring cleaning…ok, very delayed Spring cleaning…I find I have a number of things to dispose of.

The useful items are going to charities.

Most of the trash I know what to do with.

But I have three classes of toxic waste that take special disposal: batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs (aka CF bulbs), and a very very old non-functioning laptop.

Radio Shack kindly took the batteries, including the one from the laptop. I removed the hard drive for security. The issue is what to do with the carcass.

Miami-Dade doesn’t make either of these tasks easy. The only place I can find that will take the CF bulbs are the County’s Permanent Home Chemical Collection Centers facilities, which are not exactly next door:

The Centers are located in West Dade at 8831 N.W. 58th Street, and in South Dade at 23707 SW 97th Avenue Gate-B. Normal hours of operation are Wednesday through Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The web site doesn’t actually say they take CF Bulbs (although this list includes “fluorescent bulbs” generally), but Greener Miami says they will [2010: Archive.org version], and I trust them. (I did try calling the number for the Centers, but gave up after 10 minutes on hold.) [2010: Miami-Dade has changed the Centers’ web site to make clear that they do in fact take CF Bulbs.]

And even if they will take the CF bulbs, they won’t take the electronics. For that I have to go to certain of the Trash & Recycling Centers (the ones marked with a “2″):

  • North Dade 2*
    21500 NW 47 Avenue
  • Norwood
    19901 NW 7 Avenue
  • Palm Springs North 2*
    7870 NW 178 Street
  • West Little River 2*
    1830 NW 79 Street
  • Golden Glades 1, 2*
    140 NW 160 Street
  • Sunset Kendall 2*
    8000 SW 107 Avenue
  • Snapper Creek 1, 3*
    2200 SW 117 Avenue
  • Richmond Heights
    14050 Boggs Drive
  • Chapman Field 3, 4*
    13600 SW 60 Avenue
  • Eureka Drive 2*
    9401 SW 184 Street
  • West Perrine 2*
    16651 SW 107 Ave
  • Moody Drive 1, 2*
    12970 SW 268 Street
  • South Miami Heights
    20800 SW 117 Court

Sigh.

[Original draft 9/3/2008. In preparation for my blog redesign, I’ve been going through draft blog posts that somehow never made it to publication. This is one of them.]

2010: I still have the light bulbs somewhere.  And as I’m doing another round of cleaning now, the piles of toxics are likely to grow.

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3 Responses to Annals of Safe Waste Disposal

  1. Many hardware stores will recycle CFL bulbs – take a look at the list here:

    http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cflrecycling.html

  2. AP says:

    Home Depot on the edge of the Grove takes the CFLs.

  3. Just me says:

    This comes as a complete surprise to me. I had no idea you weren’t supposed to throw CF light bulbs in the trash. I suspect most people don’t know this and, like me, just put them in the trash for regular collection.

    Truth be told, I throw anything that fits into the trash for regular collection (assuming it doesn’t go in the recycling bin). Based on this post, it appears that I missed some kind of memo. I am going to look into this as I have around 40+ CF light bulbs up in my house.

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