MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP OF UNWANTED PESTICIDES

PROGRAM TO COLLECT AND DISPOSE OF CHEMICALS CONTINUES TO GROW

What does a person do when he or she buys a farm and is faced with cleaning up the previous owner's mess — especially if that mess happens to be old pesticides? The answer is Operation Cleansweep.

Operation Cleansweep is intended to provide a free, one-time disposal service for pesticide end users specifically in agricultural, nursery, golf course, and pest control operations, in order to eliminate the potential public health and environmental hazards from stored, cancelled, suspended and unusable pesticides.

Many pesticides have been banned, cancelled, or suspended by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because of their potential risk to human health. Some of these include DDT, lead arsenate, chlordane, toxaphene, and parathion. More are likely to be cancelled in the future. Disposal can be expensive. In addition, regulatory requirements can be difficult. More often than not, it's simply easier to store the material and hope the container doesn't leak. The problem is that sometimes it does.

PILOT PROGRAMS

Operation Cleansweep has been up and running for five years. It has developed from pilot programs in a few counties, to collection sites set up statewide, to the current program where contractors come to a participant's site, package the unwanted materials, transport them out of the state of Florida and dispose of them according to federal regulations.

It works like this: the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, along with county ag agents, county solid waste personnel, product dealers and trade associations, collect names, addresses, quantities and types of pesticides from participants and verify that information. When they have a sufficient quantity of product in a certain area, they dispatch the contractor to each participant's farm or business facility to pick up the pesticides.

The program is not for pesticide manufacturers and distributors, universities, or government institutions. Those organizations, however, are able to participate in Operation Cleansweep if they pay for disposal of their pesticides.

Nor is it for homeowners. The Department of Environmental Protection publishes information for the general public about hazardous waste disposal on its website.

Operation Cleanweep will take care of old and unusable pesticides so as to avoid situations like this material leaking from a drum. -Photo credits FDACS

PROGRAM EXPANDS EVERY YEAR

From January through June 2005, 78,887 pounds of product were collected from 62 participants in 22 counties. It's quite an increase from the early days of the program where a bit more than 25,000 pounds were collected from five counties during the entire period from 1996 through 1998.

The word is spreading every year, due to the efforts of extension service offices, trade associations and others who post notices and send flyers to potential participants. In surveys conducted after collections, most of those participating said they found out about the program through local extension meetings and an official bulletin they received in the mail.

PLAN AHEAD NOW

Although this year's program is wrapping up, Operation Cleansweep spokeswoman Kim Hainge told us there's no reason to put off making the call. "We want to encourage growers to continue to call no matter what time of year it is," she said. "We will place their inventories and their information on a waiting list. So when the program starts up again, probably in early September, they'll be on the list and ready to be scheduled."

Call (877) 851-5285 and listen to the recording, which will tell you what information you'll need to provide in order to be placed on the waiting list.

An FDACS Powerpoint presentation illustrates some of the challenges that Operation Cleansweep tackles. Credit: Kim Hainge, FDACS

Hainge also makes the point that the program is not designed to be a yearly free pickup service. "We try to go to a farm or nursery one time and help them get rid of stockpiled cancelled, suspended, and unusable pesticides. We would not place a high priority on returning to that same firm the following year," she said.

"We have noticed that some of the people who call are repeat customers who do not have good waste management plans in place at their firms. We want to focus on emergency situations, like after the hurricanes, and situations where someone has bought a farm and discovered a stockpile in an old barn on the property," she added.

For additional information about Operation Cleansweep, go to the Department of Environmental Protection's official Operation Cleansweep website or call Kim Hainge at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services at (877) 851-5285.