A dedicated permanent hazardous household waste collection facility in McLean County would encourage more people to properly dispose of dangerous materials.
That’s one of the key takeaways from a feasibility study presented this week to a county board committee, according to Ecology Action Center [EAC] executive director Michael Brown.
Brown says the EAC has spent almost 10 years looking into the possibility of a permanent site, eventually resulting in them commissioning Geo-Logic Environmental to conduct the feasibility study.
“Essentially, the report we now have from our contractor is, yeah, demonstrating there is a significant need,” said Brown. “This would benefit our community, this would benefit Central Illinois residents in general.”
Brown says a permanent household hazardous waste site would handle disposal of household goods such as oil-based paint and paint thinner, fluorescent tube light bulbs, and other flammable, toxic or corrosive products.
“We're literally talking about thousands of different types of consumer goods,” said Brown. “While we say, ‘hazardous waste,’ and specifically ‘household hazardous waste,’ these are household materials.
“So the accumulation of these materials at this site – in between pickups, where it's taken away and properly disposed of – this would be no different than what you find at any big hardware store. It’s the same types of materials that they sell there, in similar quantities. It’s not like this is a danger to the community.”
Currently, the EAC operates one-day household hazardous waste collection events primarily funded by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. But Brown says those events have gotten sporadic.
“Historically, that funding has not always been available, especially when there's been tight budget years, recession,” said Brown. “This money often gets swept out of the state budget from the Illinois Solid Waste fund for other purposes. So there has definitely been times in the past, I think, gaps as long as five, six, seven years when we haven't had a local hazardous waste collection event.”
The feasibility study Brown submitted this week to the Land Use and Transportation committee detailed aspects such as facility size, capital and operational expenses, and other factors.
Naturally, the costs may be the biggest hurdle. Brown says building a facility could see a price tag of between $3 million and $6 million.
“That's based upon new construction. We, being who we are, would like to reuse some existing structure, if possible. That would, of course, most likely save a lot of that cost,” said Brown, adding that operational expenses are projected at between $200,000-$350,000 annually.
“There are ways … that we could bring those down, or help cover some of those costs. Being a nonprofit organization that does a lot of work for the community, essentially a lot of our work ends up being public-private partnerships.”
Brown noted that a bill introduced in the General Assembly would create a statewide system where retailers and manufacturers of these goods would assist in paying for proper recovery and disposal of hazardous household waste.
“We all know, yeah, budgets are very tight right now. I think what benefits us in this case is that this is not a plan for right now, this year,” said Brown. “There is no formal timeline set up yet or proposed.
“So this is something that we could start this process, start down this path – now that we do have a feasibility study showing us how to do this and how much it would cost – we can start down this path, but we can do it in a very direct and measured way so that we are not over-committing our community to expenses that there isn't funding for right now.”
According to Brown, the pursuit of a permanent hazardous household waste site was formally integrated into the county’s most recent 20-year solid waste plan.
Illinois trails all of its neighboring states in the number of dedicated household hazardous waste facilities, with four of its five locations in the greater Chicago area – and none in Central Illinois.
“We've been working on this for a while [and] there's other nearby communities. Peoria has been trying to do this for a long time at this point; Champaign County is working hard as well,” said Brown. “So I think there's been efforts in place. But due to budget setbacks and all sorts of barriers, these things take a lot of time to develop.”
Brown says the feasibility study indicates a collection facility would be about 14,000 square feet on a parcel that approximately covers “a couple acres” outside of any residential areas. He says ideally it would be located relatively close to the population base, but also in a convenient, accessible spot for everyone in the county.
Brown says now that the feasibility report is being shared with local governments, they’re looking at what the next steps may be.
“We're just in kind of initial conversations to gauge interest in moving forward, so that's the primary activity right now,” he said. “We know there's conceptually local government support to meet this need.”
