Dumping Hazardous Materials

Dumping Hazardous Materials

Every so often we here at Tucson Iron get a call from someone that has 10, 50 gallon drums of pain or some other lead or oil based chemical that they need to get off of their property and moved far far far away from Tucson, and hopefully Arizona itself. As a normal practice we put them in touch with the proper authority in this matter (if we cannot help them) and send them on their way, in hopes they do the right thing. The real reality is the largest culprit in the dumping hazardous materials where they shouldn’t is you the renter. Not due to your devious plan to dump all of your plutonium in an obscure West Tucson abandoned missile silo, but because you just didn’t know one of two, or two of two things: That the chemical or canned chemical was there, or that it was illegal for that chemical to be dumped and not disposed of properly. So lets go over the rules of dumping chemicals here in Tucson and the State of Arizona.

Dumping Hazardous Materials

First of all, if you are a business or the obscure land owner who has hazardous materials to haul off, do call us first, we may have options for you. Basically, here are some rules to go by:

  1. Go to the Arizona Department of Environmental Property, http://www.azdeq.gov/, there you will find most of what you are looking for.
  2. Don’t even bother trying to haul, or hide waste from being found, the fines and possible arrest for transport are not worth it.
  3. For homeowners with small amounts of paint, it’s ok to dispose of hardened paint that does not run. To assist in the hardening to dispose of it, add kitty litter.
  4. For oils (auto or other) there is a list of certified oil dispensaries located here:http://legacy.azdeq.gov/environ/waste/solid/list_used_oil.html.