City of Tucson has drive-thru event for hazardous disposal

It’s a brand new year, and if your resolutions involve a less-cluttered home, free collection and recycling events can help make that resolve a reality.

The City of Tucson Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Program can help jump-start your cleaning with a drive-thru collection event from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Jan. 8, at the Eastside Service Center, 7575 E. Speedway.

The event offers the opportunity to dispose of everything from automotive fluids and auto batteries to cleaning fluids and cooking oil. Other HHW items accepted include lithium and button batteries (alkaline batteries are not flammable and can go in the trash), fluorescent lamps and bulbs, paint products and solvents, pesticides and more (tucsonaz.gov/es/hhw-list).

“Household chemicals can be harmful to the environment and often people don’t know what to do with them, so they keep them in their garages where they can be flammable or pets or children can get into them. If they have no further use for them, this is a great opportunity to dispose of them properly,” said Cristina Polsgrove, public information officer for the City of Tucson.

Polsgrove said that many people appreciate the opportunity to dispose of old paint and she offered a reminder that latex paint is water-based, so small amounts can safely be thrown in the trash (just let it dry out or add a small amount of sand to minimize mess).

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Large amounts of latex paint and non-latex products are welcome at the collection event, where the paint will be passed on to the Beacon Group for discount resale and reuse. Find more information about the paint swap program at tucsonaz.gov/es/paint-sales-drop-swap.

The HHW collection events also accept electronic waste such as computers, printers, tablets, old cell phones and televisions (with the exception of large Cathode Ray Tube or CRT items). A shredding service is also offered, with an allotment of three boxes per person.

The drive-thru events have proven very popular, according to Polsgrove.

“We shut down the events during 2020 because of COVID, but these are contactless, so people don’t event have to get out of their cars: We have volunteers who assist and they have been really successful. About 98 percent of what we collect is recycled or reused, so this is a very environmentally-beneficial project,” Polsgrove said.

For a full schedule of 2022 HHW collection events, visit tucsonaz.gov/files/es/71020_TUC_HHW_2022_eng.pdf.