CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Thanks to a grant from the Iowa DNR, the Marshall County Landfill recently launched a “Swap Shop” for household hazardous materials allowing customers to recycle and reuse such materials, which are pictured on the first day of operation last week.

Marshall County Landfill (MCL) Recycling Education Coordinator Jennifer Clemann and General Manager Don Ballalatak are always looking for new ways to improve the services at the facility located just west of Marshalltown, and they have recently benefited from an Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) grant that allowed for the creation of a “Swap Shop” where residents can recycle their hazardous household materials.

According to Clemann, such materials had previously been sent down to the Metro Waste Authority in Des Moines, but the grant for $6,565 helped MCL staff construct a shed with shelving, a cart and a scale next to the household hazardous waste building to keep them here in Marshall County.

“We can put it in our Swap Shop. People can come in and shop it for free and take things that they need,” she said.

The scale is a helpful tool for tracking how much people are bringing in and taking out of the Swap Shop to show how much material they’re keeping from ending up at Metro Waste. Ballalatak said that while he hadn’t necessarily heard of a huge demand for such a service, it seemed like a nice offering to provide.

“We thought it might be a good option for us to have in the area,” he said.

Within the first week of operation, Clemann said several customers utilized the shop, and she hopes to get the word out even more widely in the days and weeks to come. Looking forward, the landfill staff will continue to seek out new grants and initiatives that fall within the six components of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) — Organics Waste Management, Household Hazardous Materials Collection, Water Quality Improvement, Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Recycling Services and Environmental Education.

“This fit in to that Household Hazardous Waste. We always have to have a goal area in each one of those categories,” Clemann said. “Our last project was the E Waste building that fell under that household hazardous waste as well.”

Clemann noted that residents often don’t know what they’re supposed to do with hazardous materials they no longer want — which include stains, varnishes, paint thinners, aerosol cans, countertop sprays, disinfectants, bleach and a variety of automotive fluids — and they’re “constantly shocked” when they find out they can bring them out to the landfill for free instead of leaving them in their homes and risking some sort of adverse reaction or exposure.

“It’s stuff that somebody else can probably use, but they just don’t need to have an overstock,” Clemann said.

The landfill can be found online at marshallcountylandfill.org or contacted by phone at (641) 752-0646. It is located at 2313 Marshalltown Blvd., Marshalltown, IA, 50158.

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Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.