Household Hazardous Waste Day coming

Mark your calendar for April 20 – Hoover’s annual Household Hazardous Waste Day, taking place from 8 a.m.-noon at the Hoover Met. This event provides Hoover residents with a free, safe drop-off point to get rid of a wide variety of the environmentally unfriendly waste that homeowners usually can’t help but accumulate.

“This is a great opportunity for Hoover citizens to turn in items that should not be disposed of elsewhere,” said Hoover Police Department Captain James A. Coker. “Paint, fuels, ammunition and insecticides are some examples. The City will properly dispose of these items, and you will be helping to protect the environment.”

Residents showed up in impressive numbers last year, with collection data results pointing to poisonous solids and liquids among the most donated items.

For Jeff and Kari Parker, who are raising two young daughters off the South Shades Crest Road area of Hoover, Household Hazardous Waste Day is a can’t-miss event to keep their home safer and also less cluttered.

“Last year, I cleared my garage of a dozen paint cans that had been sitting there for years,” said Parker, adding that the event set-up makes it hassle-free. “You arrive with your items, and they handle everything for you. It’s an ideal time to dispose of items that cannot be tossed in with household garbage or poured down the drain.”

Chace Lake resident Tony Ballard agreed. “This is just a much safer way to dispose of chemicals than putting them in your garbage cans to go to the landfill. We only have so much clean air, water and land to use, so we need to take care of what we have.”

For families with schoolage children, the waste day also provides caregivers a chance to show children environmental stewardship in action.

“It’s no secret that many of our Hoover families are of an ‘ecofriendly mindset,’” said Hoover City Schools Communications Coordinator Jason Gaston. “For our students, a lot of that starts in the classroom, where they learn from an early age that recycling, repurposing and re-using are great ways to sustain our planet.”

For more, call 444-7543.

Note: The calendar in the April issue of the Hoover Sun mistakenly listed Household Hazardous Waste Day date as April 27. The correct date is April 20. Sorry for any confusion!