Upper Cape Hazmat Collection Sees Massive Turnout
The Upper Cape Hazmat Collection saw a large turnout last Saturday, June 26, at Falmouth High School, taking away 670 truckloads of hazardous household waste.
“The turnout was unbelievable,” said Kalliope Chute, hazardous waste materials specialist for the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension and one of the event’s organizers.
“This is my 17th year in the water quality and hazardous waste program and we’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, adding that while the event was only the second out of four planned pickups for 2021, organizers have already seen nearly a 50 percent increase in hazardous waste collected, compared to 2020.
These regional pickup events provide residents of Cape Cod with a safe and convenient way to dispose of toxic materials such as pesticides, chemicals, cleaners and paint without fees. the Cape Cod Extension also offers assistance to small businesses that need to dispose of hazardous waste, and pickup assistance for residents who need help getting their waste to the site, according to the Cape Cod Extension website.
The Cape Cod Extension operates within Barnstable County as part of a national education system “developed to convey research-based knowledge from Land Grant Universities (in this case, UMass Amherst), to the general public.” It focuses on a wide scope of environmental topics, from water quality to deer ticks.
“Protecting the drinking water from chemical contaminants is my number one priority,” Ms. Chute said. “The number one reason we operate the program at Barnstable County is to protect our sole-source aquifer. We share this aquifer across the Cape and it is designated by the EPA, which means 100 percent of our drinking water on Cape Cod comes from this source underground that is shared from Bourne to Provincetown. And it’s unconfined, which means there’s no barrier on top, there’s just a light dusting of sand. Here on the Cape we’re on a sandbar, so it’s much more vulnerable. Any above-ground activity really impacts the aquifer.”
Ms. Chute explained that one single gallon of gasoline can contaminate one million gallons of drinking water. She also noted that first responders are among the most at-risk populations for run-ins with these hazardous products. For example, firefighters going into a structure fire may be protected with masks and other gear from toxic chemicals that may be burning, but police officers and EMTs often are not. Over time, repeated exposure to hazardous wastes can prove detrimental.
“Another really powerful reason that should be prioritized more is that the Cape has a higher contamination rate of hazardous waste in our trash than the rest of the state. The Bourne landfill folks say that over 60 percent of the trash at some point ends up in that big hole in the ground. So that’s a really powerful motivator to collect hazardous waste and another reason why we do this,” Ms. Chute said.
According to a 2019 study done by the Municipal Solid Waste Department of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, 2 percent of trash statewide is contaminated with hazardous waste. A study done the following year that focused specifically on Cape Cod found that 6 percent of waste is contaminated.
“Our whole economy on the Cape rests on water. People come here as eco-tourists, whether you’re going to Woods Hole or Chatham or Provincetown or any place in between, people come here to recreate,” she said. “If there’s some kind of problem with illegal dumping or contamination of our drinking water, then it looks bad for our economy as well.”