Don’t throw away hot coals and ash, garbage hauler pleads

If you grill old school, using charcoal briquettes, Waste Management has a request: don’t dump hot coal or ashes in your garbage bin.

And don’t dump them at all in your yard waste recycling or single-stream recycling bins.

“Many times throughout the warm weather months, Waste Management drivers have to make emergency stops to empty their trucks and fight fires caused by hot coals put in carts,” a news release said. The nationwide garbage and recycling company has seen fires in garbage containers, garbage trucks, at transfer stations and landfills, the release said.

Waste Management recommends letting coals and ash cool for three or four days, then putting them in a metal container and wetting it down before throwing it in the garbage cart. Ash and coal that’s put in recycling bins means everything in the cart has to be thrown away instead of recycled, the release said.