Ever wonder if the very chemicals we use to clean our homes is hazardous waste?

Ever wonder if the very chemicals we use to clean our homes is hazardous waste? We have been dealing with the waste industry for over 6 years and one of the things that we are passionate about is finding out people’s needs and helping them make an economical decision on dealing with their waste struggles.  We would also like to help put your worries at ease. Any consumer product that we purchase, inherit or what have you is never considered waste until we decide we don’t want or need it any more and we would like to dispose of it. Depending on the hazardous characteristics of the products, there are varying requirements for disposal of these items that make it harder and harder for home owners to just throw them away in the house hold garbage. Let us give you some suggestions for some examples of waste items that have become harder and harder to throw out for home and business owners.

* Latex Paints:

1. The best thing to do with this is obviously use it up as it’s intended purpose.
2. You can open the lids on the containers of the paint to allow it to dry out so that it becomes solid. If it is solid, it will meet the solid waste bureau’s requirements of solid waste and it can be accepted at Title D
   
   
   landfills.
3. If you know of any scrap wood, cardboard in large quantities that are getting hauled to the local dump, take your excess paint and paint it onto the wood or cardboard or even metal so that it can be used up as it’s original purpose.
4. There are various household hazardous waste HHW collection events that take place that will take things like latex or oil-based paints full of product or even ones that have lost the label and you don’t even know what they are. If you are interested in finding one of these events, let us know and we can find their locations and dates for you.

**NOTE** Any Title D landfill that takes residential waste will not accept any waste that is in liquid form because it does not meet the definition of a solid waste. Solid waste will not leak through a paint filter.

* Aerosol Cans:

1. Use it up for original purpose(spray till empty)
2. Empty aerosols can be taken to any metal salvage yards provided they do not contain any of the product inside of them.
3. Title D landfills can take them if they are empty, punctured so that they don’t contain the product or propellant that’s inside of them.
4. There are various household hazardous waste (HHW) collection events that take place that will take things like aerosol cans full of product or even ones that have lost the label and you don’t even know what they are. If you are interested in finding an event, let us know and we can find a location and date for you.

* Household cleaners:

1. Use them up as originally intended or find someone that is trying to clean that may not be able to afford these cleaning chemicals to help them out.
2. There are a number of Safety Data Sheets (SDS) resource websites that you can locate for each of your cleaning chemicals so that you know where they need to be taken for disposal options. Many SDS’s by law, are required to give guidance on disposal and transportation of each of these items. Stores like Home Depot offer a basic SDS search for household chemicals that they sell.  If you are having trouble finding this information, please let us know we would love to help you.

* Old batteries:

1. Once smaller batteries are spent, D batteries down to small watch batteries can be taken to various battery recycling centers.
2. Batteries from lantern up to automotive and large storage batteries; if they are intact and not broken open or leaking, can be taken to most metal salvage facilities for recycling.
3. If there are any damaged or leaking batteries, there are various chemical transport companies that can dispose of them for you.
4. HHW events are also able to accept used batteries that we all collect in our garages or storage sheds. Again, we can get you pointed in the right direction and also even handle the waste for you.

*  Fluorescent Light Bulbs or other various bulbs or ballasts:

1. Any fluorescent lights that have gone bad can be taken to stores like Home Depot to be recycled.
2. Waste Management offers a Lamp Tracker program where you order boxes of the size of bulbs that you use and the cost of the boxes pays for the box, transportation and recycling of the bulbs. Once you fill the boxes, you call a number on the box and they send a truck to get the boxes and haul them off for you.
3. HHW events will also accept items like bulbs, ballasts etc.
4. If you have any ballasts that have a label that states they do not contain PCB’s then they can either be thrown in the regular garbage or taken to any metal recyclers and recycled as steel.

There are so many different waste streams out there that we all deal with in our every day lives. Should you ever run into an issue with trying to recycle or dispose of something, please let us know. We want to make your life easier.

Balancing work, family and fun

There are millions of blogs, articles, podcasts, and books on learning how to balance work, home, and pleasure.  We have a different approach to learning how to balancing all aspects of life.  We say that first you have to give it to God.  I know that sounds easy. A quick prayer, “god please help me balance everything that you have given unto me.”  The hard part is not the prayer it is actually giving it to God.  I like to give to god but keep a small line of floss tied to it.  Then when it is not going the way “I” need it to go I give it little tug and take control of the balance. 

Let me start with the fact that I have been traveling 50-75% for the last 3.5 years with my last job.  Let us go back even further than that though.  Exactly 6 months prior to my roll changing at my last “job”, my wife and I turned down the opportunity to travel about 6 times because we would have had to separate. We had been married for 11 years and spent less than 3 nights apart since our wedding night.  In addition, those 3 nights were rough.  In fact, it was supposed to be 5 nights but my wife pulled the kids out of school and drove 8 hours 2 days early because we were both going crazy missing each other.  I’m pretty sure that when god heard us turn down an opportunity for free travel and the ability to get in front of youth to help them grow he said, “Watch this, ya'll are in for a shack up.”  It was not 6 months later, my roll changed at work and I was “asked” to start traveling, if I wanted to keep my job.  It was supposed to be one tour of our company.  That turned into traveling 50-75% time for the next 3.5 years. 

Now do not get us wrong we are not complaining at all.  In fact, I have thoroughly enjoyed traveling.  I enjoyed the attention that came with the traveling; everyone would ask where are you going this week? The would oooo and owww over my life and say man I wish I had a job like that.  Even though I enjoyed going places and seeing “friends” coworkers, I hated leaving my family every other week. Nevertheless, it became a habit for me.  The kids got used to it, the dog got used to it.  My wife on the other hand, she never acclimated to the new roll.  I get it, she was stuck at the house taking care of our four kids, the milk cows, her chickens, horses, the dogs, cats, PTO, volunteering at the school, running the kids to lacrosse, acting, gymnastics, orchestra, dr appointments, and grocery shopping….  I cannot imagine why she hated it every time I would head out of town.  It definitely strained our marriage at times. When that happened, we would eventually pull our heads down to our hearts and ask god for help. 

He guided us to some better time management practices that we want to share with you.  We are not saying that these will work for you, but they did work for us.  We started setting up times to spend with each kid individually to do something they liked.  It might be hunting, going out to lunch, playing a video game, or having a nerf gun war.  Each child is unique and we wanted to make them feel special.  We also took up camping on the weekends.  I would get home Friday head straight for the house where Jenna would have the truck packed and ready to go.  We would load up and go explore a national park, or mountain where we could just set up our tent, and chill for a day.  Another thing we did was make sure that every weekend we did at least one thing as a family.  Sometimes we played a board game. Others we would chill and watch a family movie.  We made sure to make time for our family together and for each kid individually. 

As I said, traveling was hard on marriage at times.  I take full responsibility for all of the fights, all of the hard feelings and every single ounce of disrespect that ever happened during those times.  We found that we were both putting up a shield a distancing ourselves from each other so it did not hurt as much every week I would leave.  So we would have a great Friday, Saturday and by Sunday afternoon we started the distance, so it wouldn’t hurt so bad to leave.  How to help with that?  We ended up spending more time in the evenings….  Talking. (I know what you were thinking) we found TV shows that we wanted to watch together and would spend time just being close as we watched the shows.  We read books to help us work on our marriage.  The five languages of love helped us more than you can ever imagine.  Eventually we get to where we stopped distancing ourselves and started embracing the time we did have together.  We started living for each other. 

We made sure to put priorities our lives.  I know that sounds super easy but it is actually not easy at all.  I have a quick exercise that I am going to ask you to do.  After you get done shoot us an email or leave us a message with our answers.  What are the 3-4 most important things in your life?  Of now, prioritize them.  For me it is God, Family, and Work.  Ok now that you have yours think really hard, are you living with those priorities? I was not.  God and family had taken a back seat to work.  I made goals and took action to re prioritize life and get it back to what I needed.  I started getting up 30 min earlier every day and spent that extra time in scripture and prayer.  Then I made sure that I scheduled work around family.  When the boss said I really need you at this location this week.  I make it clear that I have no issues going there but it will either have to be an extremely short trip, or I can push it back a week and do it right.  My family started coming first.  I should mention how awesome and understanding my wife is.  Last year I missed her birthday because I was told I needed to be in a certain area and my priorities were not straight.  She never complained, but I should have never put her in that situation.

The whole point of this is to let you know that it is ok if your life is not aligned with your priorities right now.  However, do not wait to get it straightened out, because you can always make more money, but you can never get back the time you missed with your kids, wife, and God. 

I would like to take a moment and give full credit to God for everything that has every happened for me in this life.  He is the reason that I live.  In addition, I know that I went through that season of life for a reason.  He needed me to learn something so I can help others.   

CVSA Annual Conference

I will start by apologizing for all of the acronyms in this post.  The DOT techie side came out as I wrote it.  lol

Recently I attended the CVSA annual conference in Biloxi Mississippi.  It was awesome to be able to be in the same room as Deputy Administrator, Alan Hanson, from the FMCSA; Canadian officials from the CCMTA, and General Salomon Elnecave, from the Mexican Motor Carrier Enforcement.  Not to mention enforcement officials from almost every state and over 300 individuals from industry.  If you cannot see value in a conference like that then I suggest that you clean your glasses and try again. 

I would like to give everyone a quick over view of what we covered throughout the week and encourage you to consider joining the CVSA as an associate member.  This is one conference that I do not mind leaving early Sunday morning and getting home late Thursday night for.  The value it provides and the networking opportunities are endless, you are only limited by your own fear.  Let me give you a quick rundown on just a few of the people I held personal conversations with:  PHMSA director Bill Quade and talked about his recent change from FMCSA to PHMSA and how much he has enjoyed the change.  The fact that he recently went to Dubai & some of the new regulations that PHMSA is working towards.  FMCSA director of IT and his wonderful wife.  Major Chris Nordlow from the “republic of” Texas is a slight cowboys fan, lol.  Nicole who works in the motion picture industry and is working with all of the major media studios to help them support and learn what CMV drivers are and what regulations they must follow to be legal.  Dan and Abigail with the American Trucking Association.  Abigail has been to several countries and loves hiking.  She is also a next level expert in OSHA, HOS, and who knows what else.  I can’t forget Mike with the Arkansas Trucking Association.  He is a great guy and very knowledgeable on every topic in the realm of DOT.  I could keep going for days on all of the networking that happened in five short days.

Nevertheless, it is not just about networking it is also about having open honest conversations with the enforcement agencies.  Getting to see their perspective on some of the issues they are seeing on the front lines of highway safety with commercial vehicles.  In addition, when Industry has an issue like being cited for not having spare fuses when the truck I equipped with circuit breakers.  We are taking action to try and get it to where an officer will have to note in the violation what specific “critical” item is powered by a fuse, and that there was not a spare fuse for that component.  It may not seem like much but there are over 5000 no spare fuse violations annually, that is can be a huge help to industry.  We also help to shape the Out of Service Criteria hat officers use to place vehicles out of service at a roadside inspection.

Here is a big one that CVSA voted to support and is going to draft a letter to be sent to FMCSA.  We decided that it would be advantageous to industry and enforcement to have ELD providers in the United States go through a certification process.  This would help industry and enforcement know that the units are functioning properly and by the law.  Currently there are several ELD providers that are not compliant with the ELD mandate, but they are being sold as ELD’s.  To top that off the providers have self-registered with the FMCSA so industry would not know if the ELD is compliance until after the units are installed and in use.  Personally, I support this and was excited to see it come through the committee. Then the board of directors passed the motion as well. 

On the note of Canadian regulations. They have come out with and ELD law and it will take effect 2021.  They will be publishing the law in the beginning of 2020 and ELD providers will have go through a third-party certification prior to be authorized to sell their product to any trucking units running in Canada.  Also note that if you are a USA trucking company and run in Canada then you will have to comply with this new regulation.  They will also be publishing a study on the use of cannabis since it was legalized. 

It is also extremely refreshing to know that FMCSA regulators are common sense driving individuals and are trying to do everything within their power to help de-regulate the industry and keep it as safe as possible.  Hence the reason for HOS reform.  They also take massive amounts of notes from industry back to headquarters to see what they can do to help.  Not to mention if you ever have a question, I now have contacts in every aspect of FMCSA.  Passenger, IT, Weights and measures, Load securement, Vehicle, PHMSA.  How awesome is that to have contacts at the highest level of the administration? 

Currently we have approximately eight working groups and industry holds three voting spaces in each committee.  I am one of those 24 people horned to have a voting responsibility. 

Here is my request from you, if you would like to have a representation at the CVSA please reach out to me.  There is a small fee to be a member of the CVSA; the ROI will come in the first 6 months of membership.  If your company would like to have a voice please do not hesitate to reach out to me.  Second, if you have any concerns that need to be brought up to FMCSA, PHMSA, or the enforcement industry. Please reach out to me and let me know that concern.  I can either get you in touch with the right people from your region, or reach out to them myself to find an answer for you. 

If you would like to know about the conference, reach out to me today I will be more than happy to give you all of the information that I have.  

Making those tough decisions

How many decisions do you make every day?  I would say on average we make over 500 decisions, before we ever get to the office in the morning maybe even before we leave the house.  We decide to hit the snooze button or jump out of bed. We decide to brush our teeth, to pick up our phone, to kiss our spouse, which tooth paste to use, whether we make coffee, tea or drink water?  I think you get the picture; we make tons of decisions every day.  Why is it that we struggle so much with certain decisions though?  Should I quit my job, should I start my own business, should I buy a car, should I ask her to marry me?  All right, the last one is an extremely important decision.  The others not so much. 

I struggled for months with the decision of whether I should leave my job of over 5 years to pursue the growth of a company we started.  All kinds of thoughts filled my head every time I would think about it.  What happens if I fail? How will the boss take my leaving? If I stay just a little longer then I get more vacation. I love the people I work with, well most of them, do I really want to leave? I struggled with the answers to those very questions plus so many more. 

Then this amazing thing happened. One day my wife asked if I had given these concerns to God.  I looked at her like a dog listening to a high-pitched noise and answered, “No, it never occurred to me to ask for help from him.”  I stopped in my tracks and asked God to take those worries away from me. Not only did the worries go away, but I was filled with joy for the opportunity that was right in front of us. The best thing about the whole situation was that God started giving me answers to the questions that I couldn’t answer myself. 

What happens if I fail?  So what if you fail, you can go back and get a job flipping hamburgers if you need to.  You have so many skills to fall back on, you’ll be just fine.

How will my boss take it? Well we all know that people all react differently to change, sometimes they are glad to see you grow, other times they are selfishly aggravated that you left.  Never leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth if at all possible.  Personally, I told my boss, “Hey man you know that I loved working here and absolutely learned so much from you.  I can’t thank you enough for everything that you have done to help me.  I hope that it’s ok if I keep your number and you keep my personal cell. Please call me if I can ever do anything to help you, business or personal.” 

If I stay, just a little longer I get more vacation.  If I go, I won’t have to ask for vacation, I can take it when I want / need it!

You get the picture.  No decision is hard to make once you stop worrying about it and take that leap of faith. 

One of my favorite quotes comes from one of my outstanding former leaders, Ezra Lee.  I asked him what it took him to start his own business, how he was brave enough to go out on his own and then grow it into the empire that it is today.  He looked at me and said, “You know there was a time in my life when I didn’t have the money to buy shoes. I’m not scared to go back to that time again if that’s where I’m supposed to be.”

When he first told me that, I was perplexed and again looked at him as if a dog listens to a high-pitched noise. (seeing a pattern yet? lol)  I was lost.  Who would be willing to go back living off nothing? After I thought about it for a while, I realized what he was truly saying.  You have to trust that everything is under control and out of YOUR control.  The second part to that is you are never ready. Once you realize all of that, those difficult decisions aren’t very challenging anymore.

We can justify anything that we want in life, good or bad.  The point I’m trying to make is, to not sweat the small stuff.  All decisions are small when you realize that nothing is permanent.  Even tattoos can be touched up and changed.  Think about that for a second.  Not the tattoos thing, but nothing is permanent.  If nothing is permanent then what’s holding you back from taking that leap of faith.  Go ask that girl out, take the interview, apply for the job, go back to school, start trying to have kids, start your business, enjoy life!