Handling hazardous household waste, pharmaceuticals, tires and more as well as inspecting landfills and coordinating
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the many programs between the 130 municipalities within the County is the mission of the Allegheny County Health Dept." Eighty-five of the 130 municipalities have curbside recycling programs and 19 have drop off only. Fifty-nine of hte 85 are Act 101 mandated communites," explained Joy Smallwood, Recycling Officer for the Allegheny Health Dept.
The Allegheny County Health Department not only sponsors 'events' to collect hazardous materials, they are also part of a larger task force, the Southwest Pennsylvania Hazardous Waste Task Force
Since 2003, they have collected over 950,000 pounds of hazardous waste from 11,000 households. They have also paid vendors to pick up over 8,000 refrigerators and freezers from curbsides. This is paid for from funds provided by the U.S. EPA via the Clean Air Fund.
In addition to the hazardous waste program, the Health Department investigates complaints and inspects has has oversight of 40 facilities, which include both operating and closed landfills, waste processing facilities, material recovery facilities, and leaf/yard composting sites. They also inspects approximately 400 solid waste vehicles annually.
The landfills are inspected at least monthly; waste processing and material recovery facilities four times a year; leaf/yard waste sites twice a year; and one-fourth of the solid waste vehicles annually. During a field investigation all aspects of these facilities are checked for compliance with the state and county regulations governing them. A written inspection report is left with the facility manager. If violations are cited, re-inspections are conducted after a reasonable period of time to determine compliance.
They also review all permit applications and survey large generators of infectious waste such as hospitals.
These programs are funded by Allgheny County, the Environmental Fund at PA Dept. of Environmental Protection and the Clean Air Fund, from the U.S. EPA.
Segmenting and collecting these hard to recycle items and keeping them out of landfills is an important part of making places like ALCOSAN, or the Allegehny County Sanitary Authority more effective and efficient.
Located along the Ohio River on Pittsburgh’s Northside, the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) provides wastewater treatment services to 83 communities including the City of Pittsburgh. ALCOSAN’s 56-acre treatment plant is the largest wastewater treatment facility in the Ohio River Valley, processing up to 225 million gallons of wastewater daily.
