For Immediate Release: Friday, August 19, 2022
Contact: Michael Brown (309) 454-3169 x.11
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has cancelled the September 2022 McLean County Household Hazardous Waste Collection event due to insufficient capacity for processing hazardous waste materials after a June fire at their contractor’s Liverpool, Ohio processing facility. Heritage Environmental has ceased accepting many categories of hazardous waste materials until the facility is repaired. It is unlikely to be operational until late fall.
This temporary shutdown is likely to affect operations at all permanent Illinois Household Hazardous Waste Collection facilities and some or all fall HHW collection events in Illinois. The Ecology Action Center (EAC) strongly recommends that residents safely store all Household Hazardous Waste materials until events resume next year. The EAC anticipates the next McLean County Household Hazardous Waste Collection will be held in the fall of 2023. Residents are encouraged to sign up for the EAC’s hazardous waste collection email notification list in order to stay in the loop on future collection events.
Household Hazardous Waste Collections in McLean County are coordinated by the Ecology Action Center as the community environmental sustainability agency with support from the Illinois EPA, the City of Bloomington, Town of Normal, McLean County, and Bloomington Normal Water Reclamation District. The fall 2022 HHW collection had additional support provided by Heartland Community College and Republic Services.
Household Hazardous Wastes are materials and chemicals that are toxic, flammable, corrosive, reactive, or explosive. They typically cannot be safely recycled or disposed of without a special center or collection event. These wastes can be a serious threat to water supplies and public health if they are improperly discarded with nonhazardous trash (put into a municipal solid waste landfill), dumped down the drain, or illegally dumped elsewhere.
The Ecology Action Center is a not-for-profit environmental agency with a mission to inspire and assist residents of McLean County in creating, strengthening and preserving a healthy environment. The EAC acts as a central resource for environmental education, information, outreach, and technical assistance in McLean County.
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