Editor,
Recently I replaced smoke detectors with new ones that do not to have batteries. Being environmentally aware, I tried to dispose of them properly. I even drove to the hazardous waste facility off of Sand Canyon in Irvine. Much to my chagrin, they would not accept them. Instead, I was handed a list of all of the smoke detector manufacturers and I was told I needed to call the ones that made mine. It seems that because of certain components they cannot be put in a landfill and the manufacturers have had to make special effort to dispose of them. I was told that I had to mail it to a specific address, was assigned a tracking number and since I only had one by one manufacturer and another by another manufacturer they would not charge me for the disposal cost.
I don’t know about you, but I think that just all of this would not be an incentive for many people. What are you going to do when its time to change the battery on your old one?
Ganka Brown, Laguna Beach
