For Release: Friday, March 28, 2008

Pesticide Cleansweep Program on Long Island

Thousands of Pounds of Pesticides to be Removed

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis announced today that DEC will hold its Spring CleanSweepNY program on Long Island covering Nassau and Suffolk Counties throughout the week of March 31, 2008.

"One of DEC's priorities is to build a toxic free future," said Grannis. "Each drum and partially empty container of old, unwanted pesticides that is turned in this week is a big step forward in helping DEC and New York State realize this goal."

"Efforts made by the DEC staff and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) personnel, who made their facilities available, are to be commended," continued Grannis. "Equally important are the contributions made by industry partners who took the time to go through their inventories and pull out these old, obsolete and unwanted pesticides for this event so they will no longer pose a potential environmental risk."

CleanSweepNY is a unique opportunity to dispose of unwanted and/or obsolete pesticides and chemicals, including elemental mercury, as part of the statewide effort to provide a healthy and sustainable New York. This opportunity is meant to retrieve unwanted pesticides used by agricultural and non-agricultural professional applicators and unwanted chemicals from golf courses, cemeteries, marinas, and schools. Additionally, empty, triple-rinsed HDPE-2 plastic and metal pesticide containers will be collected and recycled.

CleanSweepNY is administered by the DEC which has collaborated with the NYSDOT for the Spring CleanSweepNY program in providing sites for collection of the unwanted materials. The program is also supported by Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Agricultural Container Recycling Council, and agribusiness and related associations.

"The continued success of the DEC's CleanSweepNY program is a testament to the public's desire to protect Long Island's fragile environment, a goal shared by NYSDOT," New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Astrid C. Glynn said. "We are pleased to partner with the DEC on this important initiative and provide convenient, local drop-off points at our maintenance yards."

This is the tenth CleanSweepNY collection event since the program's inception in 2002. To date, CleanSweepNY has collected and disposed of more than 545,000 pounds of hazardous chemicals and more than 400 pounds of elemental mercury, and has collected for recycling approximately 2,000 plastic and metal pesticide containers that would have otherwise ended up in landfills. CleanSweepNY is an Environmental Benefit Project, initially established with approximately $2.2 million from several Consent Orders settled in DEC's pesticides program for violations of the state's pesticide laws. To date, 239 professional applicators are pre-registered for the Long Island event to dispose of more than 120,000 pounds of unwanted pesticides. CleanSweepNY will again be collecting such outlawed pesticides as DDT, chlordane, and mercury.

Pre-registration is required to participate in CleanSweepNY. Collection events during the week of March 31 are scheduled in Nassau and Suffolk Counties as follows:

Date: Monday, March 31, 2008

Collection Site:

NYSDOT
1900 Route 58
Riverhead, NY

Date: Tuesday, April 1, through Thursday, April 3, 2008

Collection Site:

NYSDOT
1400 Walt Whitman Road
Melville, NY 11747

For more information on CleanSweepNY, visit http://www.cleansweepny.org or call toll free: 1-877-SWEEPNY.