Nye County declares U.S. Ecology Day

In a consumer-driven world, the need to dispose of used or out-of-date items and other refuse is an inevitable consequence.

The majority of the time, people can simply toss things into a garbage can to picked up curbside and hauled away but for some kinds of trash, namely household hazardous waste, that isn’t possible. This leaves many residents with stockpiles of hazardous waste and no idea what to do with it. That is where U.S. Ecology comes in.

U.S. Ecology is a hazardous waste treatment and disposal company with a site located just south of Beatty in Nye County. While the company regularly holds household hazardous waste collections events all around the country, it had never done one in Nye County before, until this year.

The first-time Nye County Household Hazardous Waste Collection event, held May 18 at the landfill in Pahrump, was very well received by the community and was hailed as an incredible success, prompting Nye County officials to craft a proclamation that would publicly demonstrate how grateful the county is for all of the work U.S. Ecology put into the event.

During its Tuesday, Oct. 15 meeting, the Nye County Commission unanimously approved that proclamation, declaring Oct. 15, 2019, as U.S. Ecology Day.

Nye County Public Works Director Tim Dahl was the one to bring the idea forward.

“I appreciate you guys taking this into consideration. I just want to continue to convey my appreciation to U.S. Ecology for participating and all that they did for our, what I am aware of, first household hazardous waste day,” Dahl told commissioners. “It was a very successful day, we had a ton of people coming through.”

Nye County Public Information Officer Arnold Knightly added, “This was a big undertaking by U.S. Ecology. They did the heavy lifting on this event … They absorbed the cost, they had 20 staff here, three chemists, 11 field techs. It was just a great event, it kept a lot of waste out of our desert, old paints and gasoline and oils and a lot of televisions.”

U.S. Ecology Operations Manager Daniel Church was at the Oct. 15 meeting to accept the proclamation in person and he expressed gratitude on the company’s behalf to Nye County for collaborating on the waste collection event as well. “U.S. Ecology really appreciates the opportunity to work with the county on this. It is an important topic, to dispose of that material properly,” Church said.

County officials agreed that they would all like to see a regular partnership between the county and U.S. Ecology, to allow for more household hazardous waste events in Pahrump and throughout the rest of the county.

As detailed in the proclamation, the Nye County Household Hazardous Waste Collection saw 8,550 gallons of various forms of waste brought to the event from Pahrump households, including 2,955 gallons of paint and 2,200 gallons of used oil.

The materials collected were transported to the Beatty U.S. Ecology Site, where they were either recycled or underwent a treatment process before being deposited in the company’s landfill.

Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com