McLean County Household Hazardous Waste Collection Scheduled for Saturday, September 23, 2023
The McLean County Household Hazardous Waste collection event, scheduled for Saturday, September 23, 2023 is appointment-only in order to regulate traffic to prevent long waits; all participants must sign up for an appointment. Participation is open to all Illinois residents at no cost. Illinois regulations mandate that only residential wastes may be collected—no business or commercially generated wastes are accepted. The deadline for appointments is Friday, September 15, 2023 at noon.
Sign up for an appointment today atHHWmclean.org and please spread the word with friends, neighbors, and coworkers. "Carpooling" of household hazardous waste is encouraged to help reduce the number of cars but increase the amount of materials collected. Consider offering to take HHW materials for neighbors to help reduce event wait times at the event.
Accepted materials include: Oil-based paints, Used Motor Oil, Herbicides, Pesticides, Insecticides, Old gasoline, Pool chemicals, Cleaning products, Mercury, Acids, Household batteries, Paint thinners, Lawn chemicals, Solvents, Antifreeze, Hobby chemicals, Aerosol paints and pesticides, Fluorescent lamp bulbs, Drain cleaners, and Corrosives.
Unaccepted items include: Latex paint, Agricultural wastes, business/commercial sector wastes, Explosives, Fireworks, Controlled substances, Car or Truck Batteries, Propane tanks, Smoke detectors, Farm machinery oil, Fire extinguishers, Biohazard waste, Institutional or business waste, electronics/e-waste, or appliances.
Volunteers are needed to help with traffic management. Please sign up for a shift to help at HHWmclean.org.
The 2023 McLean County HHW collection is made possible in partnership with Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, with support from the City of Bloomington, Town of Normal, McLean County, and BNWRD, and in-kind services donated by Republic Services.
Questions? Give us a call at 309-454-3169.
How to Properly Dispose of Latex Paint
Have you been finishing up some projects at home or finally getting around to cleaning out your garage? Surely you have found some paint and thought, hmm what can I do with this? The answer might be simpler than you think. If the paint is oil based, then it will need to be disposed of at a permanent household hazardous waste (HHW) facility or taken to a one-day collection event. See previous article for info about this year's McLean County event! To get notifications about future collection events, sign up for our HHW email list here.
If your paint is not oil based it is likely a latex based paint which is non-hazardous and cannot be taken to a HHW collection event. Instead, latex paint can be legally and safely put in the trash once completely dried out. To dry out latex paint, pour it out in thin layers on a disposable material, such as old newspapers or cardboard. Allow each layer to dry completely and repeat the process until you have dried all of your latex paint. Then roll up the newspaper and rubbery paint, and throw it in the trash. Watch this video for more guidance!
Using kitty litter to dry out latex based paint is not recommended because kitty litter clumps the paint and makes it seem dry on the outside, while it stays wet on the inside. Please instead use the method described above.
Keep an eye out for possible future legislation which may help make latex paint disposal even easier!
The Science Behind Composting
Composting is a natural process where organic material decomposes into a rich soil additive. Successful composting is easy, and simply a matter of maintaining the appropriate habitat for the decomposers. Decomposers range from single celled bacteria to invertebrates like earthworms, beetles and millipedes. Given the right ingredients and conditions, these decomposers produce compost at a fairly quick pace. People often assume that an apple tossed on the ground will breakdown at the same rate as it would in a compost bin. However, a properly maintained compost bin enables the decomposition process to occur at faster rate than decomposition in nature.
Composting carries out part of the earth’s biological cycle of growth and decay. Plants grow by capturing the sun’s energy in the form of light along with carbon dioxide from the air, and water and nutrients from the soil. In turn they release sugars and oxygen. This is the process of photosynthesis. When plants die, they become raw materials for the decay process. Successful composting relies on the activity of soil organisms, such as fungi, bacteria, and earthworms, to decompose organic waste. These decomposers require oxygen to break down organic matter efficiently. The decomposition process results in the production of carbon dioxide, water, heat, and humus that can be utilized as fertilizers, and the cycle begins again. Productive compost piles have a healthy mixture of carbon rich materials (dry brown vegetation), nitrogen rich materials (wet green vegetation), air, and water.
Composting is an effective method to convert vegetable, fruit, and plant waste into free organic fertilizer you can use in your home gardens. It also has the benefit of keeping organic materials out of the landfill. Reducing the amount of organic materials in a landfill helps save landfill space, and reduce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Landfills require massive amounts of space for materials to be densely packed and piled, making them anaerobic spaces, lacking oxygen. When organic material makes its way into landfills, that material is broken down by anaerobic decomposers that do not require oxygen to function. The byproduct of this anaerobic decomposition is gas, comprised mostly of methane and carbon dioxide.
It is well known that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but it is also part of the natural decomposition process and is necessary for photosynthesis. Methane on the other hand is not needed for photosynthesis and is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide making it a very potent greenhouse gas. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, landfills are the third largest source of methane in the United States, at 15% of total sources.
Some communities in the U.S. have implemented food waste collections, similar to trash or recycling pick up, to help divert organic materials from the landfill. Here in McLean County we have a Community Composting program that allows you to drop off your food waste off at conveniently located kiosks, so it can be turned into compost by Better Earth Logistics. More information about that program can be found at BNCommunityComposting.org. If you want to continue reading and digesting (pun intended) more information about the science of composting and about backyard composting check out CompostBN.org and register for an upcoming composting workshop to get your own backyard compost pile started!
Community Solar Options
What is community solar?
A large solar array in your utility territory (in central Illinois that means Ameren only – there are no community solar options for CornBelt) that feeds the electricity it produces directly to the power grid. Customers sign up for their own shares of the array, the size of the share is based on your home electricity usage. Subscribers receive credits on their utility bill for the energy generated by their share, and they purchase those credits at a discounted rate from the company managing the community solar array.
The standard offer is a 20% savings on your community solar credits (not your total electricity bill), with no sign-up fees, and no cancellation fees. Residents who meet these maximum household income levels are eligible for a 50% savings through the Illinois Solar for All (ILSFA) program.
How does community solar work with your current electricity bill? In the example bill below, the resident used 741 kWh that month. Their community solar subscription generated 821 kWh. There is a credit of $67.01 on the bill for the 821 kWh community solar generation, and on this particular bill those credits zeroed out the supply charge. With a standard community solar 20% savings offer, the subscriber will pay the community solar company $53.60 for the 821 kWh generated (20% less than $67.01). If someone meets the ILSFA income requirements, they would pay $33.50 for the 821 kWh community solar generation (50% of $67.01).
If the community solar subscription generates more electricity than a household consumes, those net-metering credits roll over to the next month. Typically, systems will over-produce in the summer and under-produce in the winter, so net-metering credits are consumed in the winter.
Why community solar?
Community solar is a great option for:
Homeowners who have heavy shade making on-site solar nonviable.
Renters – as long as they are responsible for their own utility bill (and electricity is not included in their rent).
Homeowners who might not be able to afford the upfront investment required for an onsite solar installation at their house. However – the ILSFA program also provides rooftop solar options with no upfront costs for income eligible residents.
Available community solar options:
Community solar providers will ask you for 12 months of your energy usage to determine what size portion of the community solar array will cover your energy needs.
If you meet the above income requirements, you can sign up for an ILSFA subscription with a 50% discount on community solar credits through Solar Simplified – solarsimplified.com/enroll use code AMEREN4.
If you do not meet the above income requirements, US Solar and Nexamp are offering community solar subscriptions with a 20% discount us-solar.com/signup or nexamp.com
If you have questions about solar (community or onsite) please contact Larissa Armstrong at larmstrong@ecologyactioncenter.org or 309-454-3169 x15 for more information.
