- Messages
- 11,607
- Location
- Constantine, MI
I'm in a cleaning mood. For the past 3 days I've been cleaning the shop. I started with the obvious (floor, tools, etc.) but have now moved on to emptying every cabinet and drawer, getting rid of anything that I won't or can't use, wiping out the cabinet/drawer, and then putting everything back and marveling at all the free space I have.
Today was 'clean out the finishing cabinet' day. I was amazed to find that fully 75% of the finishes I was holding on to were not just past their usable dates, they were way past those dates! Some were hard in the can, some contained quantities so small I wondered why I held on to them. When I was done I was pleased I had freed up space and got rid of the unusable.
Now comes the hard part - what to do with ll that "hazardous material". I remembered some years back seeing separate dumpsters at the landfill for paints and solvents, so I checked their website for instructions. No note of solvent based finishes. So, I called. Good news - so long as I had less than 5 gallons total I could just bring them to the landfill.
So, I loaded up the car, drove the 5 miles to the landfill, pulled up the scale house, told the nice lady what I had and she handed me the normal number plaque, and told me to proceed. "Excuse me", I said, "where should I be taking this stuff?" "Oh, just take it down and throw it out in the regular dumping area", said she. I smiled sweetly as I rolled up the window, but I was fuming on the inside. Had I known that I would have simply put all this stuff in my garbage can and set it out on the curb - saving myself the half hour round trip and $4.25 in landfill fees.
So much for wanting to do the right thing.
Today was 'clean out the finishing cabinet' day. I was amazed to find that fully 75% of the finishes I was holding on to were not just past their usable dates, they were way past those dates! Some were hard in the can, some contained quantities so small I wondered why I held on to them. When I was done I was pleased I had freed up space and got rid of the unusable.
Now comes the hard part - what to do with ll that "hazardous material". I remembered some years back seeing separate dumpsters at the landfill for paints and solvents, so I checked their website for instructions. No note of solvent based finishes. So, I called. Good news - so long as I had less than 5 gallons total I could just bring them to the landfill.
So, I loaded up the car, drove the 5 miles to the landfill, pulled up the scale house, told the nice lady what I had and she handed me the normal number plaque, and told me to proceed. "Excuse me", I said, "where should I be taking this stuff?" "Oh, just take it down and throw it out in the regular dumping area", said she. I smiled sweetly as I rolled up the window, but I was fuming on the inside. Had I known that I would have simply put all this stuff in my garbage can and set it out on the curb - saving myself the half hour round trip and $4.25 in landfill fees.
So much for wanting to do the right thing.