Detoxing the House

My name is David Scrimshaw and I am a hoarder. But yesterday morning, I went down in the cellar with Manon and filled two bins and a bucket with old paint cans. It was easy for me to part with the spray cans because they are empty. I didn't feel so good about the wall paint cans that I could feel stuff sloshing inside, but then I realized that they were getting so rusty there is a distinct possibility of the cans rusting through before I ever actually use the paint in them.

So then with the bins in the car along with two empty propane cylinders and a book to read while waiting in line it was off to the one day household hazardous waste depot on the other side of the Queensway.

Guess what. I didn't need the book. Norman Street between Booth and Rochester was dedicated to the depot and was swarming with cheerful volunteers in white disposable coveralls. One volunteer directed me in, another asked me for the first three letters of my postal code (full points for compliance with privacy legislation) and and a bunch more emptied my bins and gave them back to me within about a minute.

And nobody gave me any attitude or even teasing about how dangerous looking my paint cans had gotten.

It was all so easy and efficient that it made me want to go to somebody else's house to find more hazardous waste I could drop off.

There are plenty more household hazardous waste depots coming up this year. You can find them at this link on the City's website.

And here's a link that will work for other Canadian cities besides Ottawa.