1892 German shotgun among items brought to Hoover's Household Hazardous Waste Day
About 1,400 Hoover residents dropped off items at Hoover’s Household Hazardous Waste Day on Saturday, April 22, at the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium parking lot, city officials said.
They brought their old paint, cleaning products, light bulbs, gasoline, antifreeze, motor oil, pesticides, used tires and a host of other items best kept out of landfills. Residents were asked to bring the items between 8 a.m. and noon in the 19th annual cleanup effort.
Robin Mangino, the administrative services supervisor for the Hoover Public Works and Maintenance Department who coordinates the event, said everything went very smoothly.
One of the most unusual items dropped off today was an 1892 double-barrel German shotgun. David Buchanan, a painter for the city of Hoover who was helping unload items brought in by residents, said an older gentleman brought the weapon after finding it in his closet and figuring he had no use for it.
Hoover Councilman Gene Smith, a co-owner of Hoover Tactical Firearms, estimated the antique shotgun is probably worth at least several thousand dollars.
Smith and city workers initially said the gun would have to be melted down like other guns turned into police. However, Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice said city officials will try to locate the man who surrendered the gun and help him determine the value of it and what should be done with it. The city does not plan to destroy the antique and will work to preserve the history associated with the weapon, Rice said.
The Hoover Police Department also took in a 22-caliber revolver, a pellet gun, a small box of fireworks, a couple of flares, a box of reloading supplies and 50 to 75 pounds of ammunition, mostly shotgun shells, said Officer Jennifer Stewart, a member of the bomb squad.
Police also collected 35 to 40 boxes of old prescription medication, said Lt. Mike Wright, head of the narcotics unit. A lot of it was brought in by people whose parents had died, but plenty of other people have expired or leftover medication just lying around the house, he said. The medication numbers may be a little inflated because people also brought other types of medication that are not controlled substances, he said.
A company called MXI Environmental collected most of the toxic substances to safely dispose of them. Exact numbers were not yet available, but Scott Shaw, the company’s vice president of sales, estimated they took in about 100 to 150 cubic yards of paints, about 300 gallons of flammable liquids, about 150 gallons of antifreeze, about 50 pounds of metallic mercury, about 20,000 pounds of pesticides, about 10,000 pounds of corrosive bases, about 600 pounds of corrosive acids, about 500 pounds of propane, about 900 pounds of oxidizers and about 4,000 pounds of aerosols.
The city also accepted roughly 150 tires, more than 700 gallons of motor oil, roughly 200 gallons of vegetable oil and a lot of U.S. flags to be property retired and disposed by the American Legion.
The Foundry Rescue and Recovery Center also collected several truckloads of electronics, including a lot of computers and TV sets.
“It was a wonderful day,” Shaw said. The city of Hoover has a solid team and makes it convenient for residents to get rid of a lot of different types of items at the same time, he said.
Donna Butler, a resident of the Southwood subdivision, said she was glad to get a lot of items out of her house, including old paint, batteries and weed-killing chemicals. She and her son even brought a large nitrogen tank that had belonged to her husband, who was an electrical engineer.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Butler said of the city offering the Household Hazardous Waste Day. Her sister lives in Highland Lakes and wishes she had something like this, she said.
This story was updated at 9:34 p.m. after city officials said they did not plan to destroy the 1892 double-barrel German shotgun turned in today and would work to preserve its history.