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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | January 24, 2023 02:17 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Tracy Pennycuick and Sen. Steven J. Santarsiero, Sen. Amanda M. Cappelletti |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Aiding Counties Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste |
| In the near future, we will be reintroducing last session's SB1220 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 important 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. This legislation does not increase existing funding, which is capped at $2 million, but simply allows for participating counties to draw down additional resources from this fund. The county’s HHW program ran as a cost neutral program up until approximately 2018. The result of this legislation would be additional funds being made available, at no additional expense to the Commonwealth, to the few counties that have reached the statutory cap. Last session, the bill was co-sponsored by Senators Martin, Tomlinson, Gordner, Argall, Costa, Boscola, Fontana, Collett, Muth, Comitta and L. Williams. Please join us in supporting this important legislation. |
Introduced as SB418