A Clean Environment Is A Safe Environment, But Being Eco-Friendly Is Not Always Easy

Ways to dispose hazardous household materials

Cass County, Neb. (KLKN)-A viewer, who wants to remain anonymous, lives near the Cass and Lancaster county lines, but is not a resident of Lincoln is struggling to find a place to take a trailer load of paint off of her hands.

“We want to do the right thing, we’ve always done the right thing in disposing of hazardous waste. We need to do it shortly because some of it could be leaking out in a matter of time, and then that causes hazmat to come in,” said the resident.

She is upset that she spends money in Lancaster county, by doing all of her shopping there, but is unable to use some services.

“We find out if we are not a resident of Lancaster county, we can not drop it off there,” said the woman.

“Nobody is taking any paint. I’ve called Cass county, I was referred to several numbers there. I also was referred to numbers in Omaha, and still nowhere to dispose of the paint.”

Keep Cass County Beautiful is a non-profit funded by the Nebraska environmental trust that collects these materials.

“Our county does have a household hazardous waste event, and that’s usually a once-a-year event, and it’s held in three locations in Cass County,” said Linda Behrns with Keep Cass county beautiful.

The once-a-year event already happened in 2021, and the resident did not know about it at the time.  Although she is grateful for the free service, she might not be able to wait much longer, as the cans of paint are full of rust and are fragile.

“There are some commercial companies locally where you can dispose of that. That’s an alternative, but it’s also an expensive alternative,” said Behrns.