
				Pat Quinn, Governor

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Environmental Progress - Summer/Fall 2002

Environmental Progress : Summer/Fall 2002

Household Hazardous Waste Collection Milestone

More than 250,000 have participated

Dave Burns of Batavia was in line to drop off items at Illinois EPA's household hazardous waste collection in St. Charles on Saturday, May 18, when he learned he was the 250,000th participant in Illinois to do so.

Mike Nechvatal, manager of IEPA's Division of Land Pollution Control, Geneva Alderman Ron Singer and Gary Mielke of the Kane County Dept. of Environmental Management greeted Burns and his family and presented them with several awards and gifts.

Burns was one of 1100 participants at the Kane County collection, where they jointly turned in 118 drums of materials that would have otherwise gone into a landfill or remained in homes posing safety risks.

Since 1989, IEPA and local sponsors have hosted one-day events around the state to collect household hazardous wastes in Illinois communities. The events have generated enough homeowner-generated toxic materials to fill 50,400 drums, at 270 collections that were held in nearly every county in the state.

If grouped together, the line of participating homeowners during that time would stretch for about 19 miles.

"These important collections have kept large amounts of the most dangerous wastes out of our landfills, kept it out of our streams and removed them from homes where they could be potential poisons to our children," said Illinois EPA Director Renee Cipriano.

The events are free to the public, paid for by a portion of the statewide fees on landfilled solid waste. Increased funding that Gov. George Ryan has included in the budget in recent years allowed the Illinois EPA to increase the number of collections to 17 this spring.