Not sure what to do with those half-empty cans of paint and stain or those dusty bottles of automobile fluids in your garage? The Pennsylvania Resources Council (PRC) will host a household chemicals collection event Saturday at South Park.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an average home can easily accumulate 100 pounds of hazardous waste including paints, varnishes, cleaners, pesticides, pool chemicals and car batteries.
“That’s why we’re here with these collection events to provide a safe and responsible method of disposing of household chemicals,” said Michael Stepaniak, Environmental Programs Coordinator for the PRC.
Stepaniak said the council’s fall event last year for Allegheny County was also held at South Park and 65,000 pounds of chemical products were collected. Since 2003 throughout the nine county region, organizers have collected and safely disposed of two-and-a-half million pounds of hazardous waste from 57 drive-through events.
There is a $2 per gallon cash fee when individuals drop off the waste materials. “The events are extremely expensive to pull off and really the participant fee is very modest considering what the cost is [to safely dispose of the chemicals], and the way we do it, it’s a volume-based fee,” Stepaniak said. A certified contractor processes the hazardous wastes for proper disposal through recycling, incineration of safely buried in special landfills.
People can drop off the hazardous products Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the South Park Wave Pool parking lot. A full list of materials that will be accepted and not accepted is available here.
