A little more Trash Talk

by Jed Tate
San Juan County Landfill Manager
How about a little more trash talk from your local landfill manager?
Today we thank all those who are participating in our pilot recycling program. We are seeing great success. Enough so, that we will be introducing collections of glass and paper in both the La Sal and Bluff locations.
This is due to popular demand from the public in those areas. Once again, thank you for your efforts.
Today I would like to address the most common and largest problem that landfills are seeing nationwide. San Juan County is no exception: this problem exists here as well.
Landfill fires are the single biggest problem we face today. While they can be caused by various reasons, the single largest cause of fires are batteries.
Shocking? Well not really. The overall use of batteries, especially lithium batteries, has increased dramatically over the past years, without addressing disposal of batteries.
On average, our landfill experiences three to five battery fires every month. In the State of Utah, many of the larger landfills experience that number every day.
A large landfill fire could easily cost the county millions of dollars and create large-scale problems that would increase the cost of waste handling substantially.
We ask for help from the public to control and prevent the possibility of such fires. Lithium batteries, when crushed, instantly burst into a very hot fire that has the ability to ignite all the trash around it in a very short period.
Other types of batteries can also short out and ignite a fire. This is a danger that is becoming increasingly more frequent.
Let’s solve this together. We have set up battery recycling drop-off points. In La Sal and in Mexican Hat, both transfer stations will take batteries.
In Monticello, Mountainland, Napa and True Value Hardware have agreed to be a battery collection participants.
In Blanding, Napa Motor Parts, O’Rielly Auto Parts and Redd’s Ace Hardware are also battery drop points.
The San Juan County landfill will also accept batteries separated from other waste.
Please drop them off in these locations and avoid putting them in the regular household trash. When we don’t see them or don’t know they are there, that is when they become the most dangerous.
We will accept all battery types. Where do we find these batteries? They are in toys, watches, key fobs, cell phones, tablets, power tools, lawn mowers, snow blowers, scooters, electric bikes/ motorcycles, AA, AAA, C, D, and electric cars to barely name a few.
They literally are everywhere in today’s world. They say the average person is always carrying up to five batteries with them. A phone, watch, keys, and ear pods which have three lithium batteries in them. As you can see, they are everywhere.
We can do a much better job of disposing of them correctly. Please help us out! Take all batteries to a drop location and keep them out of the regular trash.