Hazardous household chemicals can build up around the home and garage quickly, but they can’t be tossed with the regular garbage, so Iowans are being reminded to dispose of them properly. It’s estimated the average home has accumulated around 100 pounds of cleaning products, oils, paints, and lawn and weed chemicals. Trish Radke, program coordinator with Metro Waste Authority, says people need to realize that these are all considered hazardous waste and can’t be tossed in the garbage or poured down the drain.

“It’s any material that the label reads flammable, corrosive, explosive, toxic or even keep out of reach of children,” says Radke. “All of those products have hazardous material in them, so instead of putting them in your regular trash if you have used them up and need to get rid of them, then you need to look to a Regional Collection Center.”

In addition to the Regional Collection Centers, many communities across the state also offer drop-off events with details available by contacting your local landfill. Radke says the improper disposal of these items can have a negative impact on the environment, especially the water supply. There is also the direct threat to human health.

“They can also harm sanitation workers or even your family, if you were to dispose of them in the regular trash and they would leak out onto the street,” she says. “So because of the chemical make-up, they need to be disposed of in a different way than going to the landfill.” Radke also suggests to start the process of reducing household hazardous waste when shopping, by choosing those brands with natural ingredients or purchasing smaller containers to eliminate leftover, unused product.

(Iowa News Service)

A woman from Union County was arrested Thursday afternoon on a drug-related charge. Creston Police say 22-year old Brittony Lea Miller, of Creston, was arrested at around 4-p.m. on a Union County warrant for Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense. Miller was later released on $1,000 bond.

Two people were injured and trapped in a vehicle that crashed early this (Friday) morning, in Fremont County. The Sheriff’s Office reports the driver of  a 2004 Dodge Dakota pickup, 34-year old Jamie Stockwell, of Riverton, was transported by Shenandoah Rescue to the Shenandoah Hospital for treatment of minor injuries. A passenger in the truck 63-year old Jimmie Hockett, of Shenandoah, suffered undisclosed injuries and was flown by helicopter to Nebraska Medicine.

The accident happened at around 2:50-a.m., between Essex and Shenandoah, near the intersection of 190th Street and Highway 59. Officials say the pickup was traveling west on 190th Street when it crossed the centerline of the road and entered the south ditch, where it entered a creek and hit a tree before coming to rest on its driver’s side.

Both occupants of the vehicle were trapped and extricated through mechanical means by personnel with the Shenandoah Fire Department.Alcohol and speed are believed to be factors in the crash. Charges are currently pending.

Assisting Fremont County Deputies at the scene were officers with the Shenandoah Police Department, deputies with the Page County Sheriff’s Office and crews from Shenandoah Fire and Rescue.

Iowa is part of a settlement with J.P. Morgan Chase Bank over its credit card collection practices. A spokesman for Iowa’s Attorney General, Geoff Greenwood, says the company agreed to settle after Iowa and 47 other states alleged their debt collection practices were illegal. “And then debt buying or debt selling. And that’s where a company or a bank — in this case J.P. Morgan Chase — pursues credit card debt and eventually sells it off to someone else, a debt buyer who pays pennies on the dollar and then goes after the consumer,” Greenwood says.

He says this led to a lot of problems for card holders. “What we were finding is that there were consumers who really didn’t owe debt and debt collectors were going after them, or the information was wrong, the amount was wrong. They got the wrong name, there were just a lot of errors and consumers were being pursued for debts that they didn’t owe,” Greenwood says. He says Iowa and other states came together after seeing the problem.

“It’s not acceptable, and this settlement we hope will take care of this problem in the future,” Greenwood says. The settlement for all the states is 136 million dollars. “What chase is doing in Iowa, it is ceasing its collection efforts against about 13-hundred different Iowa consumers,” Greenwood says. “It’s also providing about 43-thousand dollars in restitution to about 70 Iowa consumers.”

Iowa’s total settlement is 471-thousand dollars in a settlement payment and one million dollars for attorney fees. Greenwood says Iowa’s allocation will be used to enforce consumer fraud laws, including debt collection statutes.

(Radio Iowa)