Registration open for Champaign County household hazardous-waste collection

CHAMPAIGN — Paint thinners, pool chemicals, weed killers, used motor oil, old kerosene, batteries and cleaning products.

Registration is now open for Champaign County’s annual one-day-only household hazardous waste collection event on Aug. 17 through this online link: https://hhwevent.simplybook.me/

All Illinois residents can obtain a 15-minute time slot between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. to drop off items that day outside State Farm Center — items that could otherwise harm the environment if sent to a landfill or become dangerous if stored improperly at home.

Nichole Millage, an environmental sustainability specialist for the city of Champaign, said the goal is to register 1,200 people this year. In 2023, the event garnered five gallons of asbestos, 85 gallons of flammable liquids, more than 990 gallons of corrosives and 1,405 gallons of oil-based paints.

As Champaign County does not have a permanent, dedicated facility for collecting hazardous waste, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has sponsored the local function every year since 2019 by hiring a contractor, Heritage Environmental Services, to dispose of the materials.

A full list of what items will and won’t be accepted in August can be found online. Substances like varnish, herbicides, insecticides, solvents, aerosol paints and compact fluorescent light bulbs are welcome, while expired medications, fireworks and smoke detectors and propane tanks aren’t. Notably, there’s no limit to what each person can bring but the collection event is intended specifically for household materials, so people should refrain from bringing waste like farm machinery oil or bio-hazardous materials from the commercial sector.

Millage also said people commonly do but should not bring latex or water-based paints, as they are not actually hazardous and take up space needed for other materials. Latex or water-based paints can be left out to dry and thrown in the trash.

“If a lot of people don’t have a place to bring these items, these materials, then they’re probably just going to go into their trash and then it could end up in a landfill, it could end up contaminating soil, groundwater, possibly lakes, streams,” Millage said.

“On the other side of it, if you have it in your house and you’re storing it for a long period of time, that’s how possible house fires could happen,” she continued. “That’s how accidental poisonings might happen, or it might be something that a child or pet gets exposed to.”

While the current solution to household hazardous waste is to hold these annual events, the Champaign County Environmental Stewards, a nonprofit formed in 2019, is campaigning to build a permanent hazardous waste collection facility in the county by 2026.

Susan Monte, executive director of the CCES, said the organization obtained grant funding to purchase a 4.7-acre parcel of land in Champaign County for the facility last year, and has raised over $1,13 million for the project out of the $.285 million further needed.

“Residents across East Central Illinois lack a convenient collection option for household hazardous waste,” Susan Monte, executive director of the CCES nonprofit reiterated.

“As a result, these hazardous materials often end up in landfills, may be unsafely stored in homes and garages, or are dumped into the sewer system or on the ground where they present a contamination threat to our water supply.”