Talkin' Trash & More

Talkin' Trash Newsletter
Volume 14 - Issue 3
Tri-County Resource & Waste Management Council

Providing recycling news for communities, businesses and schools

In the Newsletter

Partners For Paint Returns

Illinois Pesticide Container Recycling

Illinois Legislative Making Progress

IT'S BACK!!!

The Partners for Waste Paint Solutions
Sponsored by the IEPA is Making
a Comeback

Warren

Starting immediately, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) is offering funding for paint disposal, 55 gallon drums and transportation of unwanted residential paint.

Beginning in August, the Tri-County Regional Collection Facility (TCRCF) will resume offering its paint recycling services to residents in Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, Knox, McDonough, Schuyler and Warren counties.

When the Tri-County Regional Collection Facility ceased paint collection due to cuts in funding, the facility was working at a maximum capacity to process the large amounts of paint from the drop-off sites and facility walk-ins.

Preparation is also underway to restart the reformulation process of unwanted "good" paint by Warren Achievement Industries in Monmouth, Illinois. The IEPA is providing five-gallon buckets for the resale of the reformulated paint. The interior and exterior paint will be available in select colors and will cost $30.00 plus tax for a five-gallon bucket.

The facility anticipates the volume of paint collected in the future will well exceed the high numbers of the past, only reaffirming the necessity of this valuable program.

Illinois Pesticide Container Recycling Program

spraying

Illinois Department of Agriculture to Offer Free Recycling Program for Agrichemical Containers

The Illinois Department of Agriculture is encouraging farmers to save their empty agrichemical containers rather than discard them. The department recently announced the schedule for the 2010 Pesticide Container Recycling Program.

Beginning in early August, sites throughout the state will collect the containers and grind them into plastic chips that will be used to make shipping pallets, fence posts, drainage tubing, plastic lumber and other useful products.

Metal and household pesticide containers are not eligible for the recycling program. Collection sites will accept only high-density polyethylene, #2 plastic, agrichemical containers that are clean and dry. Participants are responsible for rinsing them and removing all caps, labels, booklets and foil seals. Read more...

Illinois Legislative Making Progress
in Defense of the Environment

thermostate

After eight years of working to cut mercury pollution, the Illinois legislative body is making headway

This year's Illinois legislative session continued a winning streak that has made Illinois a national leader in protecting public health from mercury - a potent toxin that damages the human heart, brain and immune system. Mercury has been used in a variety of consumer products and measuring devices for many years. When disposed of, these products may be crushed or incinerated, causing mercury pollution that accumulates in fish people consume.

In seven of the eight legislative sessions since 2003, environmental groups have succeeded in passing legislation removing mercury from products. In 2007, one of those bills banned the sale of new mercury-containing thermostats - each of which contains approximately four grams of mercury - but the bill did not address the millions of thermostats already installed in homes and businesses across Illinois.

This year's Mercury Thermostats Collection Act (Senate Bill 3346) requires thermostat manufacturers to establish an EPA-monitored program to collect and properly recycle end-of-life mercury containing thermostats.

But Wait,There's More!

hands and water 2