June/July 2024 Newsletter

The Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association (ILCSWMA) was established in 1993 as a not-for-profit organization for local level solid waste management officials and other interested parties. The Association is dedicated to providing a forum for networking, training and information exchange.

Book your group rate for Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association Conference.

• Bloomington-Normal Marriott Hotel & Conference Center for $107 USD per night
• Room availability: Monday & Tuesday, October 28 & 29, 2024

Please reach out to Pete Adrian at padrian@swalco.org or Kerri Gale at kerrig@jchdonline.org if you have suggestions for session topics or speaker recommendations. Thank you.

Listening Sessions: Please register for these virtual listening sessions via the links below! We encourage you to join any and all listening sessions that impact your work. Please note you must register for each one individually via the unique links below.

•  Organics – Tuesday June 25th, 10-11am - go.istc.illinois.edu/Organics 

•  Glass – Thursday June 27th, 10-11am - go.istc.illinois.edu/Glass 

•  Textiles – Tuesday July 9th, 10-11am - go.istc.illinois.edu/Textiles 

•  Plastics – Thursday July 11th, 10-11am - go.istc.illinois.edu/Plastics 

•  Metals – Tuesday July 16th, 10-11am - go.istc.illinois.edu/Metals 

The Illinois Environemental Protection Agency (IEPA) and Recycle Coach are proud to launch digital technology for waste and recycling state-wide!

This extended partnership gives every community, town, municipality and county access to robust digital tools to help with schedule reminders, material search tools, and hyper-local education to empower residents to find information fast and efficiently.

Recycle Coach is actively starting to work with counties to roll this out. To schedule an initial on-boarding call, please e-mail successgroup@recyclecoach.com and someone will respond within 3 business days.

Recycle Coach will be hiring in Illinois for two roles. First a Customer Success Manager who will be day to day relationship management, lead on-boarding, attend meetings, do strategy sessions and be your local friend and partner. The second role is a Customer Service and Implementation Specialist. Truly behind the scenes and doing back-end work, data entry to support the Customer Success Manager.

Jobs are posted HERE

Ogle County Solid Waste Management Department

May 4 th 2024 Residential Tire Collection

Submitted by Paul Cooney

On Saturday, May 4 th , the Ogle County Solid Waste Management Department, in cooperation

with Liberty Tire Inc. out of Montgomery, Illinois, conducted a used tire collection drive for

Ogle County residents.

This was the first used tire collection event for the public in Ogle County in quite some time,

with the last one occurring in 2012. Advanced permits with assigned times were issued to 120

county residents and a $2 fee per tire was collected by county staff. Assigned times were in ½

hour increments and the event ran from 8 AM to 2 PM.

Over 950 tires were collected during the event, with some folks returning with additional tires to

fill open time slots on the stand by list. Many residents inquired when the next used tire

collection would be, so there seems to be a constant demand to collect used tires.

The force was with us this day, with perfect weather conditions, smooth traffic flow, plenty of

volunteer assistance, and a great turn out of grateful residents.

Please submit information and photos of events, programs, or special happenings in your county or organization to Mary S. Allen at ilcswma@gmail.com.

IFSCC's International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) lineup was a hit! Thank you to ALL the IFSCC Members that hosted, planned and participated.

• 60 live events in Illinois (more than doubled last year's total)
• Legislative Lunch & Learn: Continued building relationship with Illinois Stewardship Alliance Organizers
• Compost Café: Compost education and many creative collaborations
• Library Partners: 20 locations throughout Illinois
• Compost Givebacks/BYO Events: 13 total 
• Press Release: Sent out to over 300 sources
• Municipal Proclamation (Morton Grove)
• Compost Share Application: Thank you Green Soils Management!
• 2 Raffles: Thanks to BioBag! 

Bart Hagston recently took a position with the Illinois Department of Public Health as a regional Emergency Response Coordinator. Send good wishes to Bart at bart.hagston@gmail.com.

Devin Moose is the Principal Engineer for Geo-logic and Associates and is opening a new office in the St. Charles area. Geo-logic is a 300-person firm specializing in geo-environmental engineering and solid waste. Geo-logic has 27 offices in the southwest and west coast areas. This will be their first in Illinois. Currently they are in temporary offices with 10 employees and growing every day. Devin's new contact information is dmoose@geo-logic.com.

For most of the summer Christopher Newman with the EPA Region 5 will be on detail as the acting supervisor for the Land and Chemicals Branch, while Susan Mooney will be the acting branch chief. Claudia Santiago will be taking over the role of EPA’s solid waste and recycling contact for Illinois, in addition to working with the EPA's Pollution Prevention program and Trash Free Waters.

Please send Mary S. Allen an email if you have changed positions within your county/organization or have taken a position with a new one at ilcswma@gmail.com - thank you!

During the Spring 2024 Legislative Session, Illinois Lawmakers introduced and passed legislation to

increase recycling, reduce waste, and foster source reduction. Below is a summary of the bills ILCSWMA

has been tracking. Also listed are some other bills that were introduced that did not pass.

The following Bills were passed by the legislature and if Gov. Pritzker signs them, they will become Illinois law.

Safety-Tech - SB0839 (Sen. Holmes / Rep. Manley) PASSED

Amends the Paint Stewardship Act to adjust implementation and reporting dates. Amends the

Environmental Protection Act to categorize certain paint and paint related waste as universal waste

subject to the streamlined hazardous waste rules.

Battery Stewardship Act — SB3686 (Sen. Koehler/Rep. Chung) PASSED

This bill establishes an EPR program for portable and medium-format batteries in Illinois. It requires the battery producer to bear the collection, transportation, and recycling of all battery chemistries and manage them through a battery stewardship organization.

Recycling Needs Assessment — SB3165 (Sen. Koehler/Rep. Chung) PASSED

This trailer bill to the Statewide Recycling Needs Assessment Act (SB1555) includes more specific

provisions to assist with the collection of data and the related task force.

Large Event Facility Recycling — SB2876 (Sen. Villa/Rep. Tarver) PASSED

This bill requires facilities with a capacity of 3,500 or more people to participate in recycling and

composting.

Small Plastic Bottle Act — SB2960 (Sen. Fine/Rep. Buckner) PASSED

This bill reduces plastic waste by disallowing hotels from providing new, mini toiletry bottles in guest spaces.

Menstrual Products Donations — HB4264 (Rep. B. Hernandez/Sen. Loughran Cappel) PASSED

This bill reduces waste and gives individuals access to menstrual products by allowing them to be

donated without fear of liability.

The following Bills were not passed by the legislature and may be reintroduced in the Fall Legislative Session.

Beverage Container Deposit Program — SB85/HB4205 (Sen. Murphy/Rep. Huynh) NOT PASSED

This bill creates a statewide cash deposit program for the recycling of used beverage containers to

reduce waste.

Plastic Bag Ban — SB2211 / HB4448 (Sen. Edly-Allen/Rep. Ness) NOT PASSED

This bill disallows grocery stores from offering plastic bags. This bill did not move forward.

Landfill Methane Emissions — SB3393 (Sen. Fine) NOT PASSED

This bill focuses on reducing the amount of organic material that ends up in landfills, incentivizing and requiring the use of finished compost and more advanced methane leak detection and gas capture

methods from existing landfills. This bill stalled in the House.

Landfill Gas Management — HB5283 (Rep. Mason) NOT PASSED

This bill requires landfills to install collection and control systems soon enough to capture methane gas that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, due to the quick decay rate of food waste.

Styrofoam Ban — HB2376 (Rep. Gong-Gershowitz/Sen. Fine) NOT PASSED

Building on last year’s success in passing a bill to prohibit State agencies from using foam food ware, this bill would require all retailers in the State also be prohibited from using foam food ware. This bill stalled in the Senate.

Thanks to the Illinois Environmental Council for their assistance in reporting on these bills. A full report can be found at Illinois Environmental Council.

STAY CONNECTED

Please send in information to share with the membership about a new program, data from a collection event, or anything pertaining to successful waste prevention initiatives or enforcement. If you are a full member and have others in your department that would like to receive this newsletter, please send an email request to ILCSWMA's administrative coordinator, Mary S. Allen, at ilcswma@gmail.com.