The Dukes of Hazardous Waste: Keeping the environment safe



MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Hundreds of Milwaukee County residents took advantage of the Milwaukee metropolitan sewer district mobile collection site on Saturday to drop off their unwanted household hazardous waste.

There's no charge to visit a collection site, and you don't even have to get out of your car.

"We really make it easy as we can for residents to dispose of this stuff," said Project Manager, Todd Guse.

Things like fluorescent light bulbs, rechargeable batteries, and motor oil.

"Sitting on a shelf in my garage, I'm always staring at it like, I've got to do something with it," said Brendon Daug, dropped off materials at the event.

Daug found some old oil and break fluid in his garage.

"I got rid of it, one less thing in the garage," said Daug.

And one less thing that could potentially harm the environment.

"One of the big things is keeping it out of the drain and getting into the water system. But it's another good point to getting it out of your house because if you have some hazardous chemicals things can spill, things could leak, if you have small children they could get into it," said Jacob Zausch, Household Hazardous Waste Technician.

Employees from Veolia Environmental Services were just outside of the Wisconsin State Fair park grounds to collect the hazardous waste.

"There's incompatible materials that if mixed cause harm so really what we're looking to do is handle them properly and minimize risk," said Guse.

16 million pounds of hazardous waste has been collected since the program started in 1997.

"A lot of people might think they are just cleaning out their basements, but bringing it here they are actually doing the right thing," said Zausch.

Three facilities are open all year in Milwaukee, Franklin, and Menomonee Falls.

For more information about the locations, and what you can and cannot drop off, CLICK HERE.