Ramificussions

Our dehumidifier died an early death. Although we owned the thing for four years, we actually ran it for a total of, at most, thirty days. We turned it on in August when the chairs felt soggy and book covers curled, and it worked for a whole day. The next day—kaput.

Technically, my dehumidifier is a “durable good” and it’s supposed to last three year. Imagine! Three whole years! But I promise that this column will not be a rant against shoddy workmanship, planned obsolescence or the inability to find anyone able and/or willing to fix the thing for less than it would take to buy a new one. This column is about how to get the thing out of the house now that it is (grrrrr) garbage.

When I look at the thing, all I can think of are junkyards piled to the brim with other so-called durable goods like washing machines, dryers and refrigerators.

So I call the Wayne County Recycling Center, imagining bits of the dehumidifier dismantled and sent off to new, useful lives. A nice man tells me that Yes! I can bring the unit to Beach Lake, but I must first have the antifreeze drained. He gives me the names of a few local businesses that will provide a sticker or letter proving that the antifreeze has indeed been drained and properly disposed of. He says it’s a federal law.

That piques my interest, given that there are no federal laws regarding fracking fluids. So I look it up. The nice man at the recycling center is wrong: EPA does not regulate the disposal of antifreeze (it’s up to each state to determine regulations), and has not determined that it is a hazardous waste even though two of its ingredients, ethylene glycol and methanol are poisonous. Wikipedia notes that ethylene glycol has been used as a murder weapon (now that must be an interesting story), and methyl alcohol is a colorless, flammable, poisonous liquid. Symptoms of antifreeze poisoning include severe diarrhea and vomiting, delirium, paranoia and intense hallucinations.

EPA does regulate spills under the Superfund Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. In short, EPA regulates antifreeze only after damage is done.

I call a business in Beach Lake that will drain the antifreeze from my deceased dehumidifier for a 35 dollar fee. I hang up the phone. I think a bit. I hit redial.

“Hi. I just called about draining the antifreeze from my dehumidifier. Do you recycle the antifreeze?”

Her business sends the used antifreeze somewhere to be “processed and reused.” That sounds good to me.

“Do you recycle the machine itself?” I ask with my fingers crossed.

“We don’t recycle the machine, but we send it to a place where aspects of it will be recycled or reused.” She assures me that “we’re on the same page about that.”

I want to believe her, so I do. But the next day I decide that maybe I’ve acted too precipitously. Maybe my dehumidifier isn’t ready to become an organ donor. Hope springs eternal, so I call a small appliance repair service.

The deal: something called the “bench fee” would be fifty dollars. Add to that the cost to actually fix the thing, not to mention a 42-mile round trip to drop off the machine. And 42 miles to pick it up. The person I speak to suggests that I check the prices of a brand spanking new dehumidifier. She’s right: new ones are cheaper than fixing the old one.

Off to Beach Lake I go with the dead machine.

But now my printer is acting up.

- Marcia Nehemiah