Injured Worker Urges Residents to Obey Recycling Rules

Chris Durand is very lucky.

Durand was injured in an accident on Aug. 28 at the Portsmouth Transfer Station on Hedly Street. An employee of the station, Durand was lifting an air conditioner from the ground when two fluorescent light bulbs hidden behind the AC exploded in his face.

"It felt like someone took fine sand, put it in a straw and blew it in my eye," Durand said. "I gasped for a few seconds to breathe."

The transfer station worker was rushed by ambulance to Newport Hospital's Emergency Room, where he was treated for the eye injury.

"It scratched my cornea," he said. "I had glass in the eye, which they washed out."

Luckily, Durand was treated and the injury wasn't more serious. He returned last Thursday to work, where he discovered residents were still discarding fluorescent light bulbs, which are illegal to dump.

"I have found four (fluorescent light bulbs) since I've been back to work," said Durand, while shaking his head in disbelief. "If this happened to someone else—it could have been anyone or worse."

Transfer station manager Alex Correia has also seen evidence of light bulbs being discarded illegally.

"It's hazardous material," Correia said. "It's in the paperwork residents receive when they are issued a transfer station sticker. We try to catch them (residents discarding the light bulbs." 

Fluorescent light bulbs are not allowed at the transfer station since they contain mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) (those oddly-shaped light bulbs that are beneficial to the environment) also contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing—an average of five milligrams, which is roughly equivalent to the tip of a ball-point pen.

Neither the long-tubed fluorescent light bulbs that hum in offices or the CFLs should ever be thrown in the trash.

How should residents dispose of fluorescent light bulbs?

"They should call the Johnston landfill or visit Home Depot," Correia said.

All shapes and sizes of fluorescent light bulbs are accepted by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corp. (RIRRC) Eco-Depot, which is also known as the Johnston landfill. 

Through its free hazardous waste program, RIRRC will accept these light bulbs at any Saturday Eco-Depot collection. To view the dates, times and locations for Eco-Depot collections, visit www.rirrc.org/ecodepot.

Appointments are required to avoid wait times.

Home Depot stores also collect unbroken CFLs for free.

Customers are welcome to bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs; place them in a plastic bag; and deposit them both into a collection unit.

Collection units are located at the front end of stores near the entrance.The nearest Home Depot store is located in Middletown at 878 West Main Road.

To learn more about  Home Depot's recycling program, click here.

Both Correia and Durand urge residents to follow the recycling rules, which are posted at various locations throughout the transfer station, to avoid an accident like this one from happening again.