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Disposal options – Three easy steps to properly store and get rid of medications:

1. LOCK
Store your medications in a lock box or locked medicine cabinet.

2. DROP
Many pharmacies and law enforcement facilities operate year-round drug collection or drop-off programs. Find participating sites near you at Vermont Department of Health.

3. MAIL
Or mail unused medication in a pre-paid envelope. Visit the Vermont Department of Health for details.
Limitations, regulations and other specifications Do NOT pour or flush medications down the drain. Water treatment plants and septic tanks are not designed to remove these chemicals.

Take to your local police station. Many of them have receptacles in their lobbies for unwanted medicines.

Please take your pesticides and herbicides to a hazardous waste collection event. If you are a farm or business, please pre-register by contacting us. Thanks to grant funding through the Vermont Department of Agriculture, the District is able to take pesticides and herbicides from Vermont residents, farmers, and businesses free of charge. This is part of a program to remove old pesticides and herbicides from properties around the state. 

• Empty Paint Cans.  Clean, dry, empty latex paint cans may be recycled with other metal cans or with scrap metal at your closest transfer station/recycling center. Empty plastic latex paint containers are trash.
• Partially Full Cans. If there is any paint left in the can, do not put it in the trash and do not dump it down the drain! Liquid paint in the trash makes a huge mess and is not allowed in a landfill.  Septic/sewer systems are not designed to treat any type of paint.  First try to find a friend or neighbor who can use the paint, then:
• All Paint — The District has a household hazardous waste depot at which paint is accepted, along with a host of other hazardous materials. Bring unwanted paint to the Depot OR to one of the following retailers:

White office paper is sometimes collected separately from other mixed paper because of its high value in the recycling market. Ask at your recycling program to see if it is separated from or included in the mixed paper category.

Newspaper can be recycled with your regular recycling program. The rule for inserts is, “if it comes with the newspaper it can go with the newspaper.”

To dispose of syringes safely, ask your physician or pharmacy if they will take back used syringes for disposal. If neither your physician nor your pharmacy provides a collection system for you, follow these suggestions:

• Make a large warning label that says: “USED SYRINGES” and “DO NOT RECYCLE.” Put the label on an empty plastic bottle like a laundry detergent bottle.  Carefully put each of your used syringes into the bottle.
• When it is full, put heavy tape over the closed bottle cap and dispose of the filled bottle in your household trash. Do NOT put the container in your recycling bin!

Residents may take their used-but-clean motor oil (no other automotive fluids) to the locations listed below. (If the oil is contaminated with antifreeze or water or anything, take it to the District’s household hazardous waste depot.) Please follow the requirements listed here, and call first to be sure they have room:

• Spurr’s Repair in Perkinsville, 802-263-5459
• Advance Auto Parts in Springfield, 802-546-2558
• Matulonis Body Shop in Springfield, 802-885-5000
• Tony’s Used Autos, North Hartland, 802-295-2215
• Adams Trucking and Excavating, Westminster, 802-463-2213
• Wal-Mart and Auto Zone

Requirements:

1. The oil must be “clean” (No water, No antifreeze, No other fluids mixed with it).
2. Typically, no more than 5 gallons at a time.
3. One-gallon container maximum size.
4. Container must be see-through—like milk jugs or windshield fluid.

Some of these businesses use the oil to heat their buildings; if the oil is not clean, it will ruin their oil burners.

PLEASE NOTE: When used oil is dumped on the ground or poured down the drain, it becomes a serious pollutant of our ground and surface waters. Remember, if you dump it, you drink it!

White and colored office paper, envelopes, cards, and unwanted mail (paper portions only, no plastic sleeves, no sample CDs, medallions, etc.) can be recycled as mixed paper with your regular recycling program.

Many of the District towns provide free, ongoing scrap metal collection at their transfer station,  except for Freon-containing appliances. See Freon.  

PLEASE NOTE: Large items like junk cars or large farm equipment cannot be added to the normal scrap metal piles, please see Automobiles or give us a call for more options.

• Thermometers with silver fluid
• Thermostats (non-digital)
• Fluorescent light bulbs
• Gas-fired appliances
• Some trunk light switches on cars
• Button-size batteries
• Dairy barn manometers
• Relays
• Neon signs

Products containing mercury SHOULD NOT be thrown in the trash. They should be taken to the District’s household hazardous waste depot (except for fluorescent bulbs and batteries; they can go to your transfer station during their hours of operation.)  Mercury is harmful to human health and the environment. Damage to the nervous system and brain can occur through inhaling mercury vapors or through consumption of contaminated fish or birds. Fish and aquatic birds of prey, like loons, are especially vulnerable to lead fishing sinkers, and other sources of lead which are transformed by aquatic microorganisms into methyl mercury, and then accumulated up the food chain. 

FUN FACT: The process of making felt hats used to include compounds containing mercury. The over-exposure of mercury led to brain deterioration in the hat makers. Hence the expression: “Mad as a hatter.”