Because the weather looked to finally be dry and Sarah had Saturday off, we had booked to go out to Reifel Bird Sanctuary on and drop off a load of shingles at the Vancouver Landfill in Delta afterwards. It was nice to get a break and tie something we love to a house reno task so it seemed like less of a chore. The weather was blustery so it wasn’t a good day for removing asbestos anyway.
I had meant to double bag a carload of shingles during the week but what with one thing and another i left it until Saturday morning. I sprung out of bed, grabbed a quick breakfast and set to work. You don’t want to get between Sarah and her birds. They are one of the few things she will wake up early on her day off for (earthquakes and explosions in close proximity are the other two). Now asbestos shingles are rectangular at the best of times and jagged and misshapen the rest of the time so it is strange to be required to dispose of them in plastic bags. To reduce the level of puncturage of the bags i line the bottoms with the tar paper from the house and try and load them neatly. In the bottom of the second bag i also put a layer of tarpaper, then struggled the bags together. They average about 35 kg a bag so it was not the easiest thing to manage on my own. It took a while to work out my technique but eventually i got a system going and got them all double bagged and tied off with wire.
The limit is 10 bags per visit for household asbestos waste but i wasn’t sure about the payload and Sarah was in the front seat so we settled on a load of 7 and set off with a little less spring in the suspension than usual.
After a nice bit of birding in the stiff breeze (38 species) we warmed up in the car for a bit checked the map and set off. I haven’t been to the dump in a decade and in that time the roads have all been changed and the access road has moved. Glad i checked! I did have Sarah as my navigator and the exit was well signed. I needn’t have worried, but i should have listened when she said that it was the next exit. I was thinking, “no, the next exit heads west we want to head east to it must be the next exit that heads west. The map showed us going under the overpass then looping around”. I was correct but i was wrong. The exit is for both and sure enough we sailed under the overpass and watched the traffic that had exited loop around and head to the dump. Sarah was well behaved and it gave us the opportunity to take an exit and see a part of Ladner Trunk Road that we don’t usually drive. I could show her where my bike route to the ferry takes me and it was a great shared moment. The second attempt was much more successful.
Sort of.
When the nice attendant looked at the bags in the back of the Jetta he asked if i had put them in the special bags. I replied in the affirmative that they were all double bagged in 6 mil bags and labelled as instructed. Apparently i was wrong. They have to be in special 6 mil bags and sealed a special way. Not the way i had. He handed me a printout. But this is for drywall i said, i know he replied, but this is drywall i said, yes but it has to done like this he said. But those bags are 6 mil bags i said, just like mine. You don’t have the right bags, he said, and told me to go get the bags at Dunbar Lumber in Ladner.
Well, that was a non-starter. It was after noon, we had been out in the cold for a couple of hours, and i had no energy to pick up some magic bags, rebag, and line up again at the dump. We drove home.
At home, caffeinated and warm i looked at what he had handed me. It was indeed all about drywall. I went back to the website.
- Double-bag in plastic, hazardous waste bags that are a minimum of 0.15 mm or 6 mil thick.
- Label bags clearly to show they contain asbestos.
I had them double bagged (nothing about how to seal them) in 6 mil bags. They weren’t technically “hazardous waste bags” but 6 mil is 6 mil. The drywall bags, which in our exchange he told me i could use, are clearly labelled “ASBESTOS”, i’ll give him that but they are also labelled “DRYWALL ONLY” so what the hell?
I had a bunch of the drywall bags already ($25 for 6) and there was no way i was going to put 2 of them on so i unloaded 7 bags, took off the outer bags, put the new DRYWALL ONLY bags on and sealed them as instructed with duct tape. While i was at it i also bagged up 3 more so i had an even 10 ready to go.
i don’t know about you but i am not built for throwing around 35 kg weights. By the time i was done i had to apply cold barley to my mouth and a warm heating pad to my back. Sunday morning i loaded the 10 bags in and headed back out to the landfill on my own. The attendant could clearly see the carefully taped tops and the printing on the bags and i was let through.
Victory!
It would have been nice to know that i had to lift them up to shoulder height to get them into the bin. Next load i might pack a bit lighter.
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