How NOT to clean up a site

This job site is located in Talmadge Maine. The clean up was awarded to another large recycler a few towns away we were only on site to remove the ewaste, and non ferrous metals we could. This thread will cover how not to do a site cleanup. We had no say in this and the other junkyard (no names will be said for privacy). This site had over 20 vehicles including military equipment and trucks, 5 school buses, a mobile home full of stuff, 2 houses full of stuff and each bus was full from the front to the back and from the floor to the ceiling.
The job was started on July 3, 2015 and my partner went on the 4th when they started removing the vehicles to pickup the ewaste and start the non ferrous. The first day over 3000lbs of computers were removed. Over 3400lbs of non ferrous were removed and we removed the mercury switches from each vehicle prior to removal from the job site.
Most vehicles didnt have enignes or transmissions some are just cabs. What happened is the junk yard (who is licensed at city and state level just like us) is just taking what has the most value to him (#1 iron mostly and complete vehicles). There were fridges full of rotten meat since the owner of the property died in August 2014 and no one was called in for over a year after his death. His family started the junkyard over 50 years ago and they just kept adding to it over the years into the day he died. My partner offered to do the clean up with a set price per ton, no cost for dumpsters, and to have a fence put up along route 1 into finished but the owners sister went with the other junkyard and this is the final result. I offered the other junkyard to clean up the rotten meat but my offer was not taken and the junkyard owner decided to knock over the fridges and let the whole place smell like rotten meat. Which by the way stunk so bad that we could not work there for some time. we came back yesterday and was astonished to see what happened within three weeks ( we took a week to work on another site and the truck decided to breakdown for the other two.) and see that all the stuff that should of been put into dumpsters (which were never brought in to remove the trash) was pushed back into the woods and into the ground. With everything bulldozed we could not get to anything that we could or recovered or scrap. This shows that people can be selfish and rude to not only to people but the environment and the town. There is open chemicals everywhere and tanks that could blow up with one wrong move and piles of scrap mixed with trash to fall on top of someone. Someone that would not be paying attention could be killed easily someone with a cigarette and drives by and flicks a butt out of the window into the area could blow up about 3 towns. There is enough propane tanks to heat up a few houses for a year or two.
Here are some pictures from before. There isn't many but some.




here are some pictures of the disaster after.

It is quite a mess.

Take it for whatever it's worth ....

If i could offer a suggestion ....

Don't make problems. Never speak ill of another scrapper. There's a dynamic in play where what goes around comes around.It's the way this crazy old world works. The things that you put out there have a way of coming back home to roost over the long run.

This is something you have to decide for yourself.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

It is quite a mess.

Take it for whatever it's worth ....

If i could offer a suggestion ....

Don't make problems. Never speak ill of another scrapper. There's a dynamic in play where what goes around comes around.It's the way this crazy old world works. The things that you put out there have a way of coming back home to roost over the long run.

This is something you have to decide for yourself.

+1 on this. Best to walk away from that mess.

Wow. That's AFTER the cleanup? What a hack job. Since you weren't awarded the original job, I would suggest that it is up to the property owner to make the next move.

I've done clean ups that bad. Sadly the property owner handled it poorly and wont see this info but I will throw it out,
for that sort of work you DO NOT want to hire a recycler, a general contractor or a demo company at a set price with all scrap turned in and the money returned to the property owner or subtracted from the bill. and yes the contractor can cheat you, but it would definitely be better then what was done to these people. now all they have is trash and wont see a penny of the scrap money to offset the cost of the clean up.

V/r HT1

Yep. I'd tell the owner i'll do the cleanup for a fee. Then two piles (one for the dumpster, one for the metal/electronics.) (and one for the propane tanks, so 3 piles) Make sure they pay for the dumpster directly, and charge them a flat fee or hourly fee for the cleanup, whatever you decide. I personally wouldn't call the DEP, this can be fixed properly without intrusion of the G-man.

Originally Posted by nutpie

I personally wouldn't call the DEP, this can be fixed properly without intrusion of the G-man.

Really? Fixed properly how? The property owners already showed they don't give one crap about the law or the environment when they're mixing in cans / barrels of chemicals in with that trash heap. It's also revealing that the property owners family turned down the option to have this done properly and went with a hack of a company to remove whatever they could.

I would absolutely file a complaint with the Maine DEP. In light of all the chemicals as well as the insane amount of trash, it's the proper thing to do.

is that whats left of the bus from the Partridge Family tv show?

There is over 1 million gallons of polluted water that we are aware of but no one knows what is in the water. There is also 3 other complaints on DEP and the town also it is an eye sore with it all. There are fridges with full of rotten meat that is over a year old now. There is stuff that simply can't even be touched until someone like the state comes in and tests it and see what is there for chemicals. Last time we knew there was high levels of lead, ammonia, mercury, and more. We knew it already was bad about 3 weeks ago and we were just going to walk off the job and the other day we were taking a look around for things and to see how it was going. Come to find out it was just worse and we could not take any kind of blame for what someone else did. So we have came down to an conclusion and decided that we are gonna report it to the DEP and the town.

Its right on state property and right on Route 1 which is basically a highway or what is a considered a highway in Maine. The Dot was there just about 2 weeks ago and the public already knows basically any one that drives by which I may mention the trash and everything else is inches away from the road which can cause a car crash.

what is sort of sad about this is since the owner died the bill for the cleanup will end up being a tax payer problem especially if there is an environmental issue as EPA cleanups are always 'deepest pockets'
if any of the waste can be traced to a generator they can be forced to pay. no statue of limitation applies

I'm not usually one to argue but.. If there are 3 complaints filed to the DEP and the DEP has taken no action, I can only assume "hazards" are low. Chemicals in a can is different than chemicals dumped onto the ground. How can this not be fixed properly? Pay me enough I will fix anything properly. Most people just pay somebody else to fix their problem. I'm not most people. But I do agree this should be cleaned up before the cans rust out.

And if I knew how a company was going to operate a site BEFORE I hired them, I would be psychic, which I am not.

If the DEP does eventually get involved, unless you have a HazMat Disposal license, you won't get the job. Lots of red tape.

A lot of trash in Maine!

Originally Posted by hobo finds

A lot of trash in Maine!

That's where us "recyclers" come in. To clean up the trash!