Berkeley garbage truck 'paints the town' after recycling mishap
Putting paint in recycling bins is a big no-no, city staff said in response to a recent Berkeley Scanner inquiry about what led to the extensive spill.
A garbage truck inadvertently leaked paint on several Berkeley streets including Milvia and Vine after someone improperly disposed of paint in a downtown recycling bin earlier this month.
Putting paint in recycling bins is a big no-no, city staff said in response to a recent Berkeley Scanner inquiry about what led to the extensive spill, which left a number of streets covered in a new color.
(Scroll to the foot of the story to learn what to do when you need to get rid of hazardous materials in Berkeley.)
Photographs submitted by Scanner readers show wide swaths of blue and light-colored paint on several streets downtown and north of University Avenue.
A handful of readers asked The Berkeley Scanner to find out what had happened.
@BerkeleyScanner Pretty low stakes, but have you noticed or heard anything about green/gray paint on streets throughout north Berkeley? Each spot looks like a spill (footprints and tire tracks through it) but seeing it all over.
— Cliff Williams (@cliffwilliams) January 20, 2023
@BerkeleyScanner I rode my bike on Milvia from North Berkeley to downtown and there was what looked like blue paint all spilled over the road, plus up and down several side streets. Any idea what happened? It was too widespread to look like a simple paint spill.
— Ensign Benson (@ensignbenson) January 18, 2023
It's still really bad and I don't think the rain is likely to clean it up. It looks like it started in front of the Au Coquelet construction site - I can easily imagine a dumpster from the construction or Ace Hardware having paint in it and everything unfolding from there.
— Ensign Benson (@ensignbenson) January 20, 2023
Aaron Gobler noticed a huge powder-blue paint spill on Vine Street near Bonita Avenue in North Berkeley on Jan. 17 and said "vehicles proceeded to spread it for a few blocks in each direction."
He continued: "When we lived on Rose St. there was some paint dumped near California and Rose and 15 years later you can still see some of it on the road. This was a huge amount of paint on Vine."
"I’ve heard of 'painting the town' but this is not what that is supposed to mean," he said.
"Somebody was naive enough to think it was OK to put wet olive green paint in a recycle or garbage can," another reader told The Scanner. "The now dried paint is all over the downtown area and who knows where else?"
According to city staff, on Jan. 16 during a rainstorm, "Zero Waste staff serviced a recycling bin on Milvia Street on their normal collections route."
That bin contained "illegally placed hazardous material (i.e., presumably some mixture of water and paint)."
Staff serviced the bin and then continued on the route: "The paint then leaked from the truck and onto the streets. Once staff became aware of this leak, they stopped the truck, stopped the leak, and then disposed the paint container at Berkeley Recycling."
Putting hazardous waste into recycling bins is illegal, staff told The Scanner.
"Even if that happens, we never want such material to leak onto city streets. We continue to look into this and we continue to gather more information about the incident," staff said.