Free Santa Monica Hazardous Waste Pick Up!

The City of Santa Monica just launched its first door-to-door collection program for hazardous waste. If you live in Santa Monica and have residential hazardous waste, you can call and schedule a pick-up at your front door.

The program collects paint, used batteries, motor oil, computer monitors and other household hazardous waste, and transports it to the appropriate recycling facility. It’s actually a budget cutting move for the City, which is eliminating the hazardous waste collection at City Yards Monday through Friday. You can still drop off hazardous waste at City Yards, but only on Saturday.

This is expected to save the City about $100,000 over the course of the pilot program.

When hazardous waste like batteries and old electronics are put in the trash, they end up in landfills where they can leach dangerous chemicals into the earth and our groundwater supplies. Things like lead and mercury from electronics, battery acid, and motor oil need to be collected safely and broken down by professionals.

Some of the components can be recycled, and the others are disposed of safely.

If you are a resident of Santa Monica and would like to schedule a pick-up, call (800) HHW-PKUP (449-7587) or e-mail atyourdoor@wm.com. You’ll get a collection kit in the mail, and detailed instructions on how to package your household waste as well as a specific collection day. On that specific day, you just have to leave your packaged waste on your doorstep and it will be picked up.

Kudos to Santa Monica for taking a stand against hazardous waste!

Update: The Santa Monica Office of Sustainabilty and the Environment also has a permenant drop-off facility that is open the first Saturday of every month.