Spokane County officials says its waste transfer stations are open during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Both of the county's waste transfer stations, off Sullivan Road in Spokane Valley and off Highway 2 at Elk-Chattaroy Road, are open and accepting garbage as well as green garden materials and recyclables.
But the lockdown has meant more people have time on their hands to work on their yards and clean out basements and garages.
The end result is those stations have been extremely busy in recent weeks.
Regional Solid Waste Manager Deb Geiger says that's created problems for the county in trying to meet safety guidelines regarding the virus.
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It's hard to keep your social distancing protocol and keep the station running efficiently. We have to keep individuals in vehicles farther apart than normal. We have to keep a bay open for commercial and, with the constant influx of people coming in, it's also hard to move the garbage from the drop off area and back into the pit,” she said.
Geiger has some advice for folks who want to avoid the long waiting times.
“We are asking those that have curbside garbage service to please refrain from coming in to the transfer station if at all possible, and just keep it to essential trips only. There are a few individuals in the county and cities that self-haul garbage and they don't use curbside. We're asking that they bag their garbage as well,” she said.
Geiger is also asking the public to use a debit card, rather than cash at the stations. She says they worry about handling large amounts of cash for security reasons as well as the threat of the Covid virus on money that may have been handled by numerous people.
