I worked in the solid waste biz for 35 years total, retired from the city of Glendale after 25 years and I’ve seen my share of truck fires and hazmat situations.

It’s an ongoing problem and I really think residents don’t care where the items end up, they just want them gone. In the cities in the Valley with automated collection, the hazmat items are not seen.

Here in the Sun Cities, it’s easy to hide a gallon of paint in a trash bag. The runners pull the can, empty it and it’s gone. They don’t tear bags open to see the contents.

When I retired from Glendale, the city hired a company for an annual hazmat event similar to a shredding event.

One of the challenges we had was educating the residents. I once had a load fire from pool chemicals mixing with used motor oil tossed into a bin. The average cost of an automated side-load collection truck now is about $300,000.

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