Drywall can’t be dropped at Westside dump

The Regional District of Central Okanagan has temporarily stopped accepting drywall at its Westside Transfer Station due to safety concerns about asbestos-contaminated drywall dust.

“Some of the (drywall) mud and texture coating that’s put on drywall contains asbestos, so there’s a bit of a health hazard when the material is loaded and dumped because dust is created,” said Peter Rothesiler, environmental services manager with the regional district.

The Westside Transfer Station had accepted drywall for decades, but WorkSafeBC raised concerns about the health hazard of asbestos exposure.

The hazard is only associated with the dust created when the drywall is loaded and moved, and there is no health risk to the public, said Rothesiler.

“When residents bring one or two pieces in, they don’t create a big cloud of dust, so there’s no health risk to them and there’s no health risk with the pile sitting there,” he said.

“When it’s loaded on a larger scale onto a trailer to haul off site, there’s a large amount of dust created at that stage.”

There is a currently a large pile of drywall at the transfer station, which WorkSafeBC has told the regional district not to disturb for the time being.

“WorkSafe wants us to line the trailers with large, thick plastic bags so no dust can escape from the trailer during transport or when the trailer is dumped,” said Rothesiler. “While we’re loading, they want us to have dust control in place, so we’ll be spraying the pile as we’re loading and everybody will wear personal protective equipment.”

The transfer station is running out of space to store the drywall and is looking to find a company that can take it.

“We’re just at the end stages of figuring out where we’re going to take it,” said Rothesiler, adding it will likely go to a landfill in Alberta that will dump the drywall into plastic bags and bury it in the next two weeks.

In the past, the drywall was taken to a recycling company in Kelowna and a company in the Lower Mainland.

Once the regional district is able to relocate the drywall, it will accept it again.

“We’ll only be taking material that doesn’t contain texture coating and (drywall) mud on it,” said Rothesiler. “It’ll just be the clean cuts from new drywall construction.”

Currently, the only local place that accepts drywall is the Glenmore Landfill in Kelowna.

“At this time, we have no plans to stop receiving drywall,” said Scott Hoekstra, landfill manager.

Routine haz-mat assessments are done at the landfill, and all employees have gone through asbestos training, he said.

“We have equipment filters for the guys who are working up there that assists in dealing with taking out the particulate,” he said.