New York Program to Offer Pesticide Collection in April
The CleanSweepNY program has announced its spring campaign to collect and properly dispose of unwanted pesticides and other hazardous chemicals throughout nine New York counties during the week of April 6.
The CleanSweepNY program campaigns to collect and properly dispose of unwanted pesticides and other hazardous chemicals during the week of April 6. Photo: PTNY.org
The event will target the Albany area, offering drop-off sites in Albany, Columbia, Delaware, Greene, Montgomery, Otsego, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Schoharie counties. These counties comprise Region 4 of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
The events are open to the public, but are specifically targeted to farmers, schools and businesses such as golf courses and cemeteries. The event will also offer free disposal of up to 100 pounds of pesticides in addition to plastic pesticide containers and products containing elemental mercury.
The CleanSweepNY program has held 12 similar campaigns throughout the state of New York since 2002, collecting almost 750,000 pounds of chemicals and more than 2,000 pesticide containers.
While pesticides are not recyclable, proper disposal is important because they cause a number of problems if washed into natural waterways. Pesticides can also cause negative health effects for humans.
Pre-registration for the CleanSweepNY events is required. To get involved, visit http://www.cleansweepny.org or call 1-877-SWEEPNY (793-3769).
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Larry Cummings
posted on March 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Wow, 750K pounds of pesticides since 2002. I wonder how many pounds have been sold in NY since 2002.
While I try to use them as little as possible, it seems I always have more than I need. When I do buy this kind of stuff I can never buy “just enough”. Leavning me with somethin in the house that I can’t don’t want to throw out but something I don’t want to store either. I guess this is why I call an exterminator rather than buying the stuff myself.
It’d be great if you could buy pesticides in dispensers that you could return to the hardware store so they could be “topped off”, so there wasn’t any waste.