Shortly after 5 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 26, Al Eldridge finished the last of his bulk metal pick-up in Colonie.
Over the past five weeks, Eldridge and a fleet of county waste trucks visited each of the town’s 12 fire districts picking up refrigerators, air conditioners, propane tanks and any metal object Colonie residents no longer had a use for. It marked the first time the area’s largest municipality offered such a service.
Before the town and county waste entered into an agreement to extend metal pick-ups to town residents, many bulk metals simply sat in basements or in sheds. Over the years, residents would have to call upon friends or neighbors with trucks to get the metals to scrap dealers or designated drop offs. In some cases, what transpired was a number of illegal drops.
The numbers still have to be tallied for the largest of such feats county waste has ever pulled off, but if successful, bulk metal collection could become a yearly event in Colonie.
We were expecting around 60 tons of metal per fire district. They collected much more than that, said Joe Stockbridge director of environmental services for the town. `In the first two weeks, the low week saw 60 tons, in the highest week they collected 80 tons.`
The word so far is that the bulk collection program was a hit with residents.
A number of calls came in to various town departments praising the program. The opportunity to do away with more than 800 tons of refrigerators and air conditioners past their prime was warmly welcomed, said Stockbridge.
Instead of carting them to the Port of Albany or Menands scrap dealers, as residents had to do in the past, residents had only to lug the antiquated appliances to the curb on Sundays. By Monday morning, the eyesores were out of sight and out of mind.
`For the most part everyone cooperated pretty well,` said Eldridge, operations manager for county waste. `A lot of scavengers were running around taking the metals.`
That’s typical, he said.
There is value in the collected metals. As part of the agreement, county waste put its fleet of trucks and employees to work as the town got the word out to residents about the collection schedule. The reward for county waste is the recyclable value of the metals.
Sorting of the metals was done on site, said Eldridge. Metal without value was separated and disposed of. All other metals were sent off to local scrap dealers.
Any items that could be potentially hazardous to the environment, items such as refrigerators or air conditioners containing Freon, were handled by town staff. They were taken to a highway department site at Wade and Old Niskayuna roads.
`It looked like a refrigerator graveyard,` said Stockbridge.
The site offered the ideal square footage to store anywhere from 50 to 60 of the defunct appliances at a time, he said. Once enough appliances were on site, the Freon was extracted, and the scrap units recycled.
In the next few weeks, the town will be sitting down with county waste as they go over the figures of the collection program to see if it was a financial success. If they determine it is a win-win program for both, it will most likely continue annually, said Stockbridge.
Although there remains a few bugs in the system that need to be worked out, town officials are confident that the program was a remarkable success and will go forward.“