Hazardous materials collection to resume

March 21, 2001

Hazardous materials collection to resume

By STACEY DANZUSO / Staff Writer, Chambersburg

Franklin County will offer door-to-door pickup of household hazardous waste again this year to boost recycling levels and prevent pollution.

The Franklin County Commissioners received one bid for the service Tuesday from Curbside, Inc., a California-based group that did the last countywide pickup two years ago.

The commissioners will consider approval of the $78,200 bid at a meeting March 29.

This is the fourth time the county has organized the collection, but only the second door-to-door program.The first two years residents had to drop off the chemicals at preset points on a single day.

In 1999, the first door-to-door collection netted 87,338 pounds of material from 687 households, two to three times as much as the earlier pickups, Elliott said.

He said the effort is part of a commitment to reach the county's goal of recycling 25 percent of its solid municipal waste. Last year, the county was up to about 21 percent.

Between April 1999 and January 2000, Curbside collected almost 44,000 pounds of oil and latex based paints, 7,840 pounds of solvent and 642 pounds of household cleaners from Franklin County residents.

Other items included in the collections were oil filters, car batteries, herbicides and pool chemicals.

"These are things that in the past would have taken up space at a landfall or leaked and been exposed to the environment," said G. Warren Elliott, chairman of the commissioners..

Administrative fees for the county solid waste collection pay for the program.

"It's a luxury to have door-to-door pickup, but it greatly increases the numbers," Elliott said.

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