MMDS’ Bill Graffin Previewing the Tory Lowe Community Cleanup

And we're talking the clean up April 18th. Look, I'm gonna need y'all to be

outside for the big community cleanup this year and salute to MMST. Bill is

in the studio. And I'll tell you this when I see Bill, I love him when he

comes through because he talks. He's from broadcasting. He's from the broadcasting

field. So the language. Yeah, so he speaks the language. So, you know, he's been on

the show multiple times. But this year, MMST is sponsoring the cleanup. The

2026 big community cleanup, Tori low community cleanup. And I am excited

because now we we're getting the full service at MLK Elementary School. And I just

want to make sure that we know what the community needs to bring Bill.

Sure. First of all, how you doing? I'm good. How are you? Fine. It's been

excellent. And so when we talk about MMST, kind of give everybody an

overall idea of the operations that y'all do on a day-to-day basis. Sure. And

the elevator speech is pretty simple. We do wastewater treatment and flood

management trying to reduce the risk of flooding in the area on the region. And

we serve 29 communities, about 1.1 million people. And we have two treatment

plants for the region, one Jones Island, the other one being South Shore. And

those treatment plants aren't designed to remove everything that gets poured

down a drain or flushed down a toilet or in a shower stall, whatever the case

may be. So some chemicals and compounds can go through the plants and out to

the lake, which is our source of drinking water. So to help protect the

environment, to help protect Lake Michigan, to help protect your home and your

family, we have a household hazardous waste program we've been doing since

1997. And it gives people somewhere to take all these nasty chemicals and

stuff that can pose a hazard, a poisoning hazard for young kids, but also some

of the other things can cause a fire hazard, like a lithium ion banner is, can

just start on fire. We've seen it. And those are things we take and happy to

do so. And dispose of them properly. A lot of stuff gets recycled. But

more importantly, we keep it out of the environment, keep it out of our water

ways. So on April 18th, we'll have the mobile unit out at the MLK

elementary school and things to bring rechargeable batteries, propane tanks,

paints, solvents, stain, removers, things like that, oil, gas, any freeze,

automotive fluids, fluorescent light bulbs, those long fluorescent light bulbs.

Yeah, they have mercury in them. Yeah. And usually people just have them

sitting in the basement or in the garage. Yeah. And that's not something

you want to breathe in if they break. And same thing with the little small

curly Q ones. Okay. They're called compact fluorescence. We'll take those

as well. And some people they try to throw those in the garbage, you know,

like, oh, this bulb is blown. I'ma just notice in the trash. And they break

when they're in the trash. And then you're getting mercury all over

whatever else is in that garbage bag and potentially if the bag breaks,

then it's in all over the truck. And it's just it's not good because

the landfills have what's called a leachate system at the bottom. And

it's a clay and some other stuff that doesn't allow water and chemicals

to sort to sip through into the groundwater. Well, that leachate system

gets collected and that material goes into a sewer, which then comes to

the treatment plant. So that's another reason why we want to keep it out of

the garbage as well. How important it is for us to make sure that we go

through the process of getting rid of those household chemicals the right

way, you know, because a lot of people, they'll have to pay to actually

get rid of a lot of this. Yeah. But on April 18th, all they have to do

is simply pull up from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at MLK elementary school,

right here in the city of Milwaukee. And people are just they'll just

pull up with the vehicle. You don't even have to get out. Nope, you can

stay right in your car. Matter of fact, we want you to stay in your car.

So yeah, it's very, very easy. Put your stuff in a box if you can. If

you have a hatchback where the hatch flips open, you just open that after

you stop where they tell you to. And they'll grab the box or whatever

you have dozens of paint cans. If that's the case. And they'll unload

your hatch and boom, you're on your way. So when you say paint cans like

things with leftover paint. Yeah. Yeah. So we don't latex paint is not

necessarily hazardous once it dries out. So if you have a can that's

completely dried out, that doesn't need to come to us. Okay. And that'll

help save us money for the overall program. Okay. The latex paint can

that is dried out, make sure the lid's off, but that can go in the garbage.

Okay. If the if the people collecting garbage, see there's a lid on

it, they won't take it because they don't know if it's dried out. Okay.

Yeah. And they're not, you know, it's just something easy to do. But

oil based paint and all that that all needs come to us. That's that

stays hazardous. Even if it's a dried can. Well, I'll say this. I think

this is a great service for the city Milwaukee, especially many times

when it's spring cleaning, you get in the garage and you just, you

know, you get the clean in the garage. You start seeing oil, oil,

cans, things with oil in it, uh, old things that you're not using

anymore, uh, 44 D cans, things like that. Yeah. You know, you just,

okay, I'm gonna just, then you just kind of collect it in a little

pile. Yeah. And or gas that goes bad for sitting in a lawnmower or a

snowblower for, you know, a season where it's not being used.

That you ain't even fit to use from the old car. Right. You got a

new car and you got the old oil just setting off to the side, you

know, yeah, these are the things that I, because I want to make

sure that people understand that this is a service that is going to

help you, uh, get rid of a lot of the things that you may have

just sitting around piling up in the basement and in the garage.

And many times when you get an opportunity to get rid of those

things, it's going to save you money and save you time. It is.

And, um, our program is extremely, uh, reasonable, uh, household

in Milwaukee County. And it's only open for Milwaukee County

residents, but, uh, household in Milwaukee County pays, uh, this

here, it'll be $5.30 for the entire year for unlimited use.

Oh wow. So not only are we going to have this one day mobile

collection, but there are three facilities open all year, um,

and that one in Monomony Falls and then one at 38th and Lincoln

in Milwaukee and another one at 13th in college in Milwaukee.

Now these facilities are three facilities. Mm hmm. And, you

know, when we talk about, cause I'm going to be visiting the

facility tomorrow, yeah, I can't wait to get over it, you know,

but like I said, this is stuff that goes on every day. People

especially when it starts to get to springtime, uh, many times a

lot of people, they'll say, okay, I can't make it to these

locations. Well, this is your opportunity to get to my

MLK elementary school right off of Monomony King. And I tell

you this, it's going to be a long day. And you know, if you're

not participating in the cleanup, all you got to do is just

pull up with the, uh, hazardous materials to just drop them

off. Yep. That's it. And if you, you know, if your neighbors

going, that's fine. Give your, if your neighbor said, yeah,

I'll take your stuff. That's fine. You can bring it. We don't

allow any business in the program. So no business, no

businesses. Um, we legally can only accept waste that's

generated by households. And there are different rules at the

federal and state level for even transporting. Oh, wow, waste

that's generated by a household versus if it's generated by

a business or anything else, the, the rules are much more

strict for any waste that's not generated by a household, they're

relaxed for household. You could just throw it in the van and

the trunk and just drive up them. And you can go, whereas a

business, you're supposed to have a special license for the

actual vehicle. Oh, it has to be rated. And you have to have a

special stamp or whatever it is for your driver's license. There's

just a bunch of different rules. If it's business related, they

relax that for, you know, the average person to be able to keep

their home safe and bring us that stuff and keep it out of the

environment too. We want to make it as easy as possible. That's

my goal running the program. I want to make it as easy as

possible. We have the three open all year, but we could use one

more. And it becomes a little tricky because not everybody wants

this in their backyard. Right. I'll tell you this over the years,

I've seen so much of the things these hazardous, hazardous

things laying around, you know, where kids can get into it, you

know, they may take a trip downstairs or take a trip into the

garage. You're not even thinking about this. This is the

stuff that's off to the side in the garage, in the basement. And

under your sink in the kitchen, it could be a poisonous thing

that could take place too. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, some, you

know, some of the things that we don't take are electronics.

Okay. And that gets tricky because it's, it's actually a

legal in the state of Wisconsin to put electronics in the

garbage. Right. And it's like television like TV's like TV's

radio's black Friday TVs that they got the 60 in screen that

don't work no more for 40 dollars. Yeah. Yeah. The disposable

ones. They gave them out. Not it don't work. You can give

us pray for you. You can't even, you can't even get rid of

them now. So don't bring nose, don't bring the tea. Yeah, you

got to wait for an electronics recycling event to get rid of

those. And unfortunately, you know, sometimes those costs

10, 20, $30 just get rid of one TV. Oh, wow. Yeah. So that's

why, you know, this program is such a good public service at

a very decent cost. And for less than what you can get one

drink at Starbucks in some cases, you get the whole year of

service in this program. There, you know, are some of the

communities or counties, I should say, to the north of us,

for example, Washington and Ozaki, they don't have as robust

of a program. So we get calls all the time, why can't we take

part in your program? That's because only Milwaukee County

residents pay for it. Right. And this is a service that's only

for us. Right. And we should take advantage of, especially when

you're talking about spring cleaning, you know, this is the best

time. And like I said, the big community cleanup is coming.

Hey, look, when we come back, we got bill public information

manager from MMSD and studio truth nation. Stay like

Dean. Oh, look, we're talking the Tory low truth community

cleanup coming April 18th from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. But we got

MMSD that'll be outside ready to get all of your household

hazard material from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at MLK, elementary

school off Martin Luther King right here on the north side, we

cannot wait to the 18 because we're going to beautify the city

we got bill public information manager at MMSD and studio and

bill, what does it mean to just be a part of beautifying the

city many times when we talk about our community, we talk about

taxes, we talk about different things that the city can do for us

or resources, but we ask people, we can do something to as

well. Absolutely. And you know what, it completely contributes

to the quality of life for everybody around you. If you're the one

who's throwing garbage out your window, that shame on you. Everybody

else has got to look at that right and deal with it. And you

know, I always think back to, because I've lived a few places in

my life, I always think back to where have I been, where tourists

for example, come in and be like, who the, how do you live here?

It's dirty. And there's garbage everywhere. And that's what I

want to prevent. And I want to make it as easy as possible. If I

could, I would set up basketball hoops sort of at every

intersection. Hey, throw your garbage in here instead of just

out on the street, right, make it easy. But yeah, quality of

life, it's about having pride in your community, your neighborhood,

and you see it when people start taking pride like that, you

notice others. Hey, I'm going to do that too. I want my

neighborhood to look good. I want this area to look good. I want

to be nice for everybody who comes through everybody who lives

here. And it, to me, it's a no brainer. Recy is in the chat. She

says, will they be able to empty gas can and all gas? What's the

address? You got it. We, if you have old gas in a can that you

think is gone bad and you just don't want to put it in your

lawnmower, whatever, you can bring the can to us and just tell

them, hey, can I get the can back? And they will take it, they

will empty it out and hand you the can back and boom, you're on

your way. And Andrew, can we want a list of the stops? Can you

get, can you just run the list of the stops for this year's

cleanup from A to B? This is where I say, when you talk about

dealing with the community, there's going to be a lot of

different things happening on April 18th, and salute to

MMSD, our presenting sponsor, they're going to have the mobile

vehicle out there from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Martin the King

elementary school. And when we talk about just making sure that

we do our part, this is not, okay, there's a difference between

what you can throw in the garbage can. And what you should drop

off at a mobile hazardous material since. Yeah, when you, when

you throw chemicals and even metals that can be in in various

products, those can get it when they get into the landfill, they

can end up getting into the liquid that collects at the bottom

of landfill. And that goes to a sewer, which then comes to

the water, it goes to the treatment plants, which aren't

designed to remove some of those things. So again, it, it

creates the potential for those chemicals and nasty stuff to

to go through the plant and out to the lake, which we don't want

and, and, you know, people who love to fish and swim and, and

get their drinking water from like they all appreciate that.

And it's out to us to make sure that we stop that from

happening in contamination. It is. And you know, Tori, I'm, I'm

still a little shocked when I hear people and I hear it about

people who catch a neighbor or something who they're changing

their oil and they don't know that that storm grain out in the

street goes directly to the nearest stream of river. It

doesn't go to the treatment plant in many cases. So when you do

that, you're creating an oil slick on the river. And then

where else got to deal with that? And, and that's not good.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School, 3275 North

Third Street. 3275 North Third Street is where the mobile

set up. Yeah, it's going to be you can start early as 8 a.m. All

away to 2 p.m. Yeah, my experience with these and all of

them is especially with the mobiles will get a crowd 20, 30

minutes before the collection even starts and they'll be a

line that forms. Right. But then 30 minutes after the collection

starts, you can just zip right in and zip and it goes really

quickly. We just we get that build up at the beginning of

people who just really want to be the first in line. So I guess

my point is they've been waiting to give it a few minutes

before you come in. So you don't have to sit in that line. And

this is all this is citywide. This is Milwaukee County. It's

all Milwaukee County. This is all Milwaukee County. Anybody

from Milwaukee County can come out on April 18th and drop off

hazardous materials. Yes. And when I tell you, this is a great

thing to add to the community cleanup. Let's say you can't

make the cleanup, but you can drop off. Come, come out, drop

off. We want to make sure that we have resources and things

and play to help you with your spring cleaning this year.

And not to mention, if you if you're timing right, you can get

a free something to eat too. Oh, yeah, you come at the end, at

the end, at the elementary school, as at the last stop, will be

at the elementary school, the last stop from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. And

hey, we'll have food. We'll have food for those that are signed

up. You got to register. You got to go to ToriLogueCleanup.com

to register. Make sure you register because if you come, you

know, register, we may not have a proper head count, you know,

so we, you got to register so we can get the head count. So we

know how much to have. So that's why it's important to go to

ToriLogueCleanup.com and make sure you register for one or two or

all three locations and make sure that you participate in the

biggest community cleanup of 2026 is going to be powerful. And

I appreciate mmsd for adding this element because there are

people that don't know what to do with that stuff. It's been

piling up for a while now. And it's just time to clean. It's

time to get all that clutter out the garage out of the the

basement. It's time. And this is the opportunity. Yeah, don't

caution that and pull up. They'll just grab it out the car. You

ain't got to get out. Yeah, and you, you don't have to register

to do the. No, you don't have my collection. You don't have

to register. Yeah, yeah. So it's a great program. I'm proud to

be involved with it. And we've collected millions of pounds of

chemicals and other compounds over the years. And we keep

expanding our list of things. You know, paint is one of the

biggest things we get in. But we've expanded to propane tanks,

for example, the little one pounders used for camping, the 20

pounders that are used for gas grills. We will take those

now. And the company we work with actually bought the equipment

to extract whatever gas is left over in those cylinders. And

they will then use that gas to power their forklifts. Or if

they have enough, they'll use to heat some of their buildings

at the property where they do a lot of this recycling and

repackaging of what comes in. So it's a it's a great thing to

be able to do that. And prior to that, you couldn't get rid of

propane tanks around here. There used to be a company that

would do it for a charge, but they stopped. And so we were

getting tons of calls. What what's going on? Like where can we

take these? And the answer was, don't know, can't tell you

but we provided a solution to that starting last year. And

it's been it's been going great. So once again, things to

bring. Yes. Anything you use for painting. Automotive

fluids. Eddie, all your paint pretty much. Eddie been sniffing

that paint. Time to get rid of it, Eddie. Trying to quit. Yeah,

paint, you know, driveway sealer, old fertilizer, although

what's going on right now, petroleum fertilizers.

Way expensive right now. Hair spray. You'd be surprised at

the crazy stuff we get in, like, Hey, my husband just died.

He was a science teacher. He has all these frogs and glass

jars for for melda hide. Oh, wow. Yeah. Can we bring those?

Yeah, you can. Oh, wow. They can't scientific mercury. We've

had people bring in mason jars, half full of mercury. Because

they're again, somebody in their family was a science teacher at

one point or something. Who knows how they got it. But if you

have old thermometers, those have mercury in them. Those, those

old schools don't know they got phones now. So they need

the monitors. But it's they're seeing a lot of them sitting

around. Yeah. So we'll take those. Okay. And those are great to

get out of your house. And then the digital thermometers are

pretty harmless. Except for, you know, there's electronics,

which has some metals, but vape equipment will take that. We do

not deal with the THC vape equipment, but anything that's

nicotine related, including the actual vape devices that have a

rechargeable lithium ion battery in them. We want to they'll, they'll

smash those open and get the battery out. And dispose of the

rest properly. But even the liquid nicotine is hazardous. If you

think about it, and not a lot of people give it any thought, it

even rubbing alcohol is a flammable. It's if you're not using it,

right? You don't need it. Something you may want to think about

getting out of your house. All kinds of things. So make sure

gas. Yeah. The gas, any freeze, motor oil, any any

automotive fluids, stain, removers, solvents, fluorescent light

bulbs, you know, just the things that just lay in the corner

that you've been just been sitting there. And you need to get

rid of it. Yeah. Make again, make your house safer, make your

family safer. And get rid of some of these things that let's face

it a lot of times that there's nothing but dust collectors. And

they they sit in that corner for years and years. And I'm guilty

of it. I'm like, I'll use that one day. Why would I throw it

out? So I have to spend another $20 on something later. I'm

guilty of it too. Hey, look, also also not we're not doing the

TVs or the electronics. Yeah, no, we can't do electronics. And we

do have, if you go on our website, which is just mmsd.com, and you

find the home has matte information, there's a list of things

that we do take and a list of things we do not take. And I've

tried to populate for the things we don't take, I've tried to

populate that pays with here's where you can take those things

like appliances and the humidifiers and things like that. So

there's at least some solutions there for you. If you have those,

we can't take them, but trying to provide a resource. Something

interesting I see is people are doing prescription drugs. They

dumping the prescription drugs or something like that. You

would not doing that. No, no, no prescription drugs. You have to

be able to collect prescriptions. You have to have law

enforcement there to accept. Okay. So that's why we set up

program years ago. We used to do medicine collections. And then

we got the police so heavily involved that now there's drop

boxes at police stations and pharmacies. And those have special

handling regulations for who can empty those boxes. And if you

need more information on that, it's take back my meds. They

have a pretty extensive list of places. You just put in your

zip code and it'll show you everywhere close to you where you can

drop off prescription drugs as well. Well, Bill, I will definitely

see you tomorrow at the facility. Yeah. At the MMS, the

facility. I cannot wait to see the facility tomorrow. It'll

be my first time. But before we want to break, I want to get

your final thoughts. And what you want the community to know

was there anything that we missed in the conversation? No,

just, it's amazing how many people don't know this program

exists. Even those have been going on since 1997. And it really

is a great public service and very cost effective ones. So

use it. If I wish we had, you know, like bank supports, we

could have a collection center on every corner like the banks

too. But we have the three open all year and hoping to get

another one. That's what's up. Yeah. Bill Graffin, public

information manager at MMSD in studio, and the big Tori Low

truth community cleanup is coming April 18th, MMSD, presenting

sponsor this year, mobile unit going to be out at MLK, elementary

school, and it's going to be out there from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This

is a perfect chance to kind of keep your house safe from

hazardous materials. Yep. And fire hazards extinguishers? No,

okay, fire hazards like the lithium ion batteries that can

catch fire on batteries. Yeah, bring them to us and we'll take

that that thread out of your house. All right. Well, it's

going to be at Dr. Martin Luther King, junior elementary

school, 3275 North, Third Street. This is going to be going on

from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Just pull up. You don't have to get out. They

go have you taken care of out, get it out and get out the way

get back to the house. Yep. We appreciate everybody that wants

to keep their community safe that will be participating and

beautifying our in our city April 18th, starting at 8 a.m. Go

to ToriLogueCleanup.com for more information. And once again,

we appreciate you bill as always. And I'll see you tomorrow.

Yeah, I don't know as we I can't wait to take take care of your

family and take care of the lake and