Tri-County Hazardous Waste & Recycling Program

The Tri-County Hazardous Waste & Recycling Program provides hazardous waste disposal and recycling education & outreach to residents of Wasco, Sherman and Hood River counties.

The Tri-County Program is a partnership between Wasco, Sherman and Hood River counties and the local governments of The Dalles, Hood River, Dufur, Maupin, Mosier and Cascade Locks. The program is housed under the Wasco County’s Planning Department in The Dalles, Oregon.

Efforts to organize the program began in 1999, spearheaded by Glenn Pierce (Environmental Health for North Central Public Health District) and Art Braun (former owner of The Dalles Disposal). Hazardous Waste is an issue that is hard to address as individual communities, particularly in rural areas. By working together, these community partners were able to pool resources and expertise to provide services to all our citizens in a cost-effective way.

Hazardous Waste Collection

Tri-County HWR provides collection and disposal services to households, businesses (conditionally exempt generators, or CEGs), orchardists and farmers of the Tri-County area. The program owns two hazardous waste collection facilities, which are located at The Dalles Disposal Service, 1317 W. First Street, and Hood River Garbage Service, 3440 Guignard Drive.

Both facilities opened in July 2006. The Tri-County Program holds hazardous waste collection events at both permanent facilities, as well as once a year at rural locations. We contract with PSC Environmental Services for the recycling and disposal of hazardous waste.

Recycling Education and Outreach

In the fall of 2007, Tri-County HWR expanded its services to provide recycling planning, education and promotion services to the Tri-County area. Expanding the services of the program allowed Tri-County to manage the requirements for waste reduction and recycling mandated by the state of Oregon for the three counties.

The Oregon Opportunity to Recycle Act (1999) gave the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality statutory authority to mandate waste recovery and recycling rates for counties. At the time, each county was assigned a target level of waste recovery/recycling, based upon historical trends and potential for increased recycling efforts. Wasco County has a target rate of 35%; Hood River County has a target rate of 25%; and Sherman County has a target rate of 20%.

The Tri-County program partners with service providers and county and city government to help improve recycling for both residential customers, rural residences, and businesses.

The program also focuses on dynamic public outreach and education, with the goal of helping the community understand what, where, how and why to recycle. This includes assisting and complementing the existing work done by the franchised haulers and the current county programs promoting recycling. The program provides hands-on help to households, businesses and institutional users of the system.