No local Household Hazardous Waste event this year

Instead, residents will have to travel to Marshall or Coffee counties in April to dispose of household chemicals and products considered inappropriate for regular landfill disposal.

Solid Waste Coordinator Gay Ervin told the authority she had received a letter from Paula Mitchell, the program coordinator for the waste event for the state Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), which said that "the program is unable to fulfill your request for service due to budget constraints."

A household hazardous waste event is scheduled for Marshall County on April 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Goodwill store in Lewisburg. The Coffee County event will be on the same day, but times and location were not listed.

Mitchell also said in her letter that counties must begin managing "paint, electronic scrap, batteries, oil, and antifreeze year-round to be considered for regular collection service.

"Counties that currently manage these marginally hazardous materials year-round should promote their programs by using newspaper, radio, or other media to reduce the impact of these wastes at their mobile collection events," Mitchell wrote.

Ervin also presented a paint recycling proposal to the authority that would cost a little over $1,000. Members voted to look into a location for the facility.

All that would be needed would be two 20-yard roll-off bins -- one for empty paint cans and the other to be used for paint absorption, as well as a few relatively inexpensive items.

The bin would be filled with a load of wood chips to absorb the paint, which would be taken to a landfill. The largest expense in the proposal would be a carport shed for a shelter to keep the paint dry.

The recycling would only have to be done one day every three months and would require help from two inmates from the Bedford County workhouse.

Marshall and Coffee counties already use the same process, Ervin said.

In other business, an inspection of the inactive Quail Hollow landfill near Raus found no violations, Ervin reported.

A geologist from TDEC's division of solid waste management looked over the facility on Jan. 30. The landfill is inspected every three months, Ervin said.

The county's scrap metal contract with South East Recovery Group is "still good," according to members of the authority, with the county taking in $2,300 in January, or $70 per ton.

Members also said they hoped this means that the market for scrap metal has bounced back. The new scrap metal contract was awarded by the authority in December after the previous contract had to be voided due to plummeting metal prices.

A motion was also passed to look into getting signs for county convenience centers to indicate into which bins wood, metal and other items should be dumped.