Participation was down 20 percent and businesses made barely a dent in their allocation at the annual hazardous waste cleanup Friday at the old city shop on Union Street.

“Some years people are busy and it catches them off guard,” said Steve Haavig of Juneau, who oversees the program funded by the Haines Borough. Between 100 and 150 people stopped by, and amounts were generally small, he said. “Nobody brought pickup loads filled to the gills with stuff.”

The nastiest item collected was 20 gallons of hydrochloric acid used as rust remover, he said.

The borough funded removal of up to three barrels of anti-freeze and a barrel of oily sludge, acting on a request by garage owner Bob Lowden, who said the cost of disposing such wastes is burdensome for small businesses like his.

But Lowden’s 25 gallons of sludge were the only deposit from a business. Borough public works employee Ralph Borders said there would be more participation from businesses if an allocation was made for their old paint.

Paint was most of what was collected. Cans of it filled out a four-foot-cube box and loose paint filled four barrels. There were also a 30-gallon drum of household batteries, a barrel of bulk acids, a barrel of antifreeze, a barrel of crushed fluorescent lights from Haines Friends of Recycling, and two barrels of bad gas.

There were enough car batteries to fill one shipping pallet. “There were 52 compared to about 250 some years,” Borders said.

Besides deposits, there were a few withdraws. Residents salvaged a gallon of camp fuel and an unopened can of waterproofing “snow seal.”

Cleanup workers say one-fourth or more of the “wastes” deposited each year are still usable. Often it’s partially filled paint cans.

Fisherman Richard Boyce has found bottom paint for his boat, poison for carpenter ants and usable paint at the event. He tries to stop by each year to see what’s being thrown away.

“It’s better to have stuff used in the correct way than thrown out,” Boyce said this week. “Some of the stuff sits too long and goes bad, but a lot of people throw out stuff that’s usable. Latex paints usually have been frozen, but enamel paints usually are just fine.”

Borders said the hydrochloric acid looked great – “If I needed it, I would have taken it home” – but said he wouldn’t like to see residents rummaging through toxic or flammable substances. In some big cities, residents dropping off hazardous materials at similar events must remain in their cars, he said.

Containers not filled at the event typically are topped off with hazardous materials from the borough shop, Borders said.

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