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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | August 10, 2021 12:46 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Steven J. Santarsiero and Sen. Amanda M. Cappelletti |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Helping Counties Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste |
| In the near future, we will be introducing legislation to bolster the state’s household hazardous waste collection program to ensure that counties can continue to host these important recycling events. Most Pennsylvanians do not have the ability to safely dispose of their household’s hazardous waste (HHW), so they rely on their county to host free collection events. Each year, these popular events collect millions of pounds of waste statewide. HHW includes unused household products that may explode, catch fire, or be generally harmful to the environment if not properly disposed, such as paint, pesticides, pool chemicals, drain cleaners, batteries, and motor oil. To help counties host these events, Act 190 of 1996 provides a state funding match of up to $100,000 per county. Unfortunately, this limit has not been increased despite the fact that the cost for counties to hold these events has increased exponentially over the last two decades. Therefore, our bill would increase the limit on matching funds that each county may receive from $100,000 to $250,000. The intention of our legislation is not to increase existing funding but to simply allow for more equitable distribution among the participating counties. The county’s HHW program ran as a cost neutral program up until approximately 2018. At that time, costs to collect and process HHW began to rise dramatically to almost 40% more than in prior years. Please join us in supporting this important legislation. |
Introduced as SB839