The Boulder County Household Hazardous Waste Facility will open on a regular basis, by appointment only, beginning Saturday, April 30. Since staff is limited, people without appointments will not be served. Please do not come without an appointment.

All Boulder County residents may participate in the program. Citizens are asked to call the HHW hotline in advance at 441-4800 to make an appointment.

When calling to make an appointment, each participant will be asked to provide the following information: name, address, telephone number, whether a city or unincorporated county resident, a brief summary of materials being brought to the event, and how many households the waste is from. Once an appointment is made a confirmation letter will be mailed providing details about the HHW facility.

The staff will try to provide each caller with an appointment date and time that is convenient to the caller's schedule. Missed appointments will require a new appointment.

Beginning Wednesday, May 25, the facility will also be open Wednesday afternoons by appointment. The facility is at the Western Disposal transfer station at 5880 Butte Mill Road east of Boulder.

The HHW facility will serve at least 1,878 vehicles or approximately 2,348 households--a slight increase from the 2,279 households served in 1993. Rather than scheduling large collection events, as in the past, participation will be on a weekly basis by appointment.

The program will accept the full range of HHW products including auto, garden, and cleaning products. Some examples include: antifreeze, household and car batteries, car cleaners and waxes, household drain cleaners, degreasers, deodorizers, floor cleaners, laundry products, oven cleaners, rodent poison, moth balls, paint products, rust removers, weed killers, insecticides, flea powders and wood preservatives.

Materials that will NOT be accepted at the facility at any time include anything radioactive, explosive or shock sensitive; infectious or medical waste; non-hazardous or unidentified materials. The collection site will NOT accept waste from business, industrial or agricultural sources.

This year's program is being supported by Boulder County and the cities of Boulder, Broomfield, Lafayette, Longmont and Louisville. The county also hired two part-time employees to staff the collection facility on a regular basis. The county and cities developed the Household Hazardous Waste program in 1992 to provide county residents with an environmentally sound way to dispose of household hazardous waste.