Placer County Ensuring Residents Dispose Of Spoiled Food Properly After Power Shutoff
Placer County (CBS13) — Placer County is taking steps to ensure residents dispose of spoiled food properly.
As a result of the PG&E power shutoffs, thousands of home owners have been dealing with piles of rotten food which is now overflowing in garbage bins.
Matt Squire lives off Dry Creek Road in Auburn and was without power for three days before it restored Friday.
"There it is. All the eggs, pizza and the ketchup, cheese" said Squire as he gave an inventory of food he had to throw away.
Squire estimates he's thrown out two to three hundred dollars worth of groceries during the outage.
"You name it we tossed it," Squire said.
READ ALSO: Power Outage Food Safety: What Food You Should Toss After An Outage
Placer County is now concerned all the food waste will attract unwelcome visitors who can smell the buffet from miles away.
Rebecca Lillis is an Environmental Resource Specialist with Auburn and says Placer County is taking steps to ensure homeowners are safe.
"The smell of all the spoiled food waste will attract bears and other wildlife and rodents and customers may not have their regular collection for a couple of days," Lillis said.
For that reason, Placer County Environmental Utilities and Recology Auburn Placer are offering customers affected by the PG&E shutoffs free food waste disposal at three of the county's transfer station locations.
"People are going to want to start getting their homes and businesses back in order. We want to help them clean out their refrigerators and freezers," Lillis said.
At the Auburn transfer station, attendant Robert Rojas says customers have been quick to take advantage.
"They can come and dump it from eight in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon," said Rojas, who added it's been busy the past few days. "This place gets so packed with trash so the scraper comes in and scrapes it all up there so the foods all mixed up in that pile."
ALSO: PG&E: Power Restored To 97% Of Customers Friday Night
On a good day, Recology Auburn Placer is busy, but with Waste Management in Grass Valley still without power, customers from Placer and Nevada County have been disposing of spoiled food in Auburn.
Rebecca Lillis says the free spoiled food waste disposal program can be extended if needed but right now this plan is in place for now.
The following transfer stations will have dedicated dumpsters for free food waste disposal through Oct. 14.
Recology Auburn Placer
12305 Shale Ridge Road
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.Meadow Vista
2950 Combie Road
8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.Foresthill
6699 Patent Road
8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Robert Squire says he's thankful because he can't fit all the trash in his bins.
"I think its a good deal. I'm going to be taking my stuff down there," said Squire.
The food waste can be disposed of in original packaging and containers.
