Household waste collection day is Saturday

You've heard of spring cleaning. How about fall cleaning to get rid of hazardous materials?

"I bet every house in the county would have a couple of gallons of old liquids that could be hazardous," Lynn Bestul said. He is heading up the household waste collection day, going on this Saturday.

"It's for the residents to bring any of their hazardous materials, old paint thinners, gasoline, anything like that that's in their house," Bestul said.

The program is for New Hanover County residents only. Business waste is not allowed to be dropped off.

"Being a county employee I feel that we owe it to the tax payers to provide this service."

Chances are that when you open your garage you will have stored hazardous materials that can be harmful to yourself, your family and the environment. Things like gas and a can of paint.

Bestul said, "These are items we don't want people putting into their regular household trash because if it ever gets to the landfill it could create problems getting into the water supply for the residents around here, we don't want that to happen."

The hazardous waste not only harms the environment — your home is also at risk.

"A lot of these things are acids and they could eat through flooring, anything like that. A lot of it is flammable material so it could create fires at the homes."

You can drop off your hazardous wastes this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the old cinema parking lot across from UNC Wilmington.