After several buckets of improperly disposed of pool chemicals led to the lockdown of several Gurnee businesses last week, Waste Management and fire department officials reminded area residents of the proper avenues for tossing out potentially hazardous materials.
According to Tim Steffens, Gurnee Fire Department battalion chief, the department got a call on Sept. 17 for a dumpster fire. When an engine got on scene, firefighters found a Waste Management truck had dumped its load in front of a dentist’s office in the area of Washington Street and Ambrogio Drive.
The driver had noticed smoke from the rear of the vehicle, and Steffens said it’s common practice for garbage trucks to dump the load to avoid damage to the vehicle and allow crews to hose down the materials.
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There was some light smoke coming from the pile, Steffens said, which increased when hit by a water stream and began making some “popping noises.” Determining it was “different than a normal rubbish fire,” and noting several five-gallon buckets of pool chemicals, the crew backed away.
With the chemicals off-gassing, the crew called in an ambulance with a hazmat tech and isolated 150 feet in every direction, instructing businesses to keep their windows and doors shut and turn off their HVAC, although Steffens labeled the chemical reaction as an “irritant” rather than a serious risk.
The vapors began to dissipate, but wind conditions meant roads remained shut down for several more hours, he said.
According to Steffens, Waste Management brought in SET Environmental to handle the hazardous waste, which responded at about 4:30 p.m. It was cleared and roads reopened by about 6 p.m.
Although there were no injuries, Steffens noted the lengthy road closures had impacted area businesses. Bringing in a third-party company to pick up hazardous waste is costly, Steffens said. He said Waste Management will likely look into the source of the materials.
Attempts to reach a Waste Management spokesman were unsuccessful.
Steffens encouraged residents to contact the village of Gurnee or the Solid Waste Agency of Lake County to learn about chemical waste days, rather than improperly disposing of materials.
“You don’t want to hurt your garbage man or the public,” he said.
Joe Martino, HCW program and facility manager at SWALCO, said it’s important to take chemicals to proper disposal outlets like their own.
SWALCO hosts two disposal events a month in Gurnee and visits around the county for mobile collections, with the next scheduled for Oct. 24 at the Lake Forest Municipal Services Building, where it will collect any hazardous materials a household may have, including pool chemicals.
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If residents are unsure how to handle a material, they can check for instructions on the container, Martino said, and look for hazard warning statements cautioning about being corrosive, flammable, or poisonous/toxic/irritant. There’s also an accepted materials list on SWALCO’s website.
With the Sept. 17 incident, Martino said it’s “hard to say” why the chemicals reacted without knowing more details. But a common example would be combining a chlorine stabilizer, an acid, with a calcium hypochlorite, a base. This would produce toxic C12 gas as well as “a lot of heat,” enough to even light a fire.
Any one of these products can injure workers or damage a garbage truck, but combined they create a perfect storm to actually cause a fire, Martino warned.