To help prevent truck fires, DO NOT place the following material in your recycling
or trash carts:
- Hot ashes (such as cigarette paraphernalia, hot coals, or wood)
- Motor oil, gasoline, antifreeze, kerosene, or other automotive liquids
- Paint, varnish, pesticides, pool chemicals, or other household chemicals
- Propane tanks
- Automotive, rechargeable NiCad, or Lithium batteries
- Liquid cooking oil or grease
Most household hazardous waste (HHW) can be taken to the HHW Facility. Used cooking oil and grease can be recycled through the Town's Cooking Oil Recycling Program.
Truck fires are caused by improper material disposal in a recycling or trash cart. Materials can be incompatible and react when mixed with other waste in a collection vehicle or combust when compacted.
The combination of incompatible chemicals, such as household bleach and ammonia, can be lethal. Depending on the types of household chemicals mixed in a collection vehicle, the results can injure workers, families, neighbors, pets, and the environment.
Carefully sorting or separately containing household chemicals in your trash container is still risky. When trash is collected, it is compacted in the truck to make room for more refuse. The compaction process allows incompatible materials to mix together.
Household chemicals such as pesticides, fertilizers, automotive fluids (including oil and antifreeze), paints and paint thinners, and pool chemicals should be used to the last drop and then bagged and tied before being tossed. The best disposal option for most household hazardous waste (HHW) is taking them to the HHW Facility.