Garbage, Money, and Hazardous Materials

Hazardous materials emergency services, like many special operations in many departments, is funded by a variety of alternative funding mechanisms including fee for service (cost recovery) and grants (public and private).  One funding mechanism that may be overlooked is an idea that comes out of South Florida – garbage fees.

In this case, every garbage can and commercial dumpster is assessed at a nominal fee.  Individually, these fees come to a few dollars per year, but when taken together, provide significant funding to support hazardous materials training, equipment, planning, and exercises.  The fee is passed through to the Local Emergency Planning Committee who are responsible for the distribution of funds to both ensure that emergency response personnel are trained and equipped for their mission and to provide household hazardous waste disposal to reduce the impact of hazardous materials incidents.

Hazardous materials teams and policy-makers should consider this model as an option for funding training and equipping responders at all levels, improving planning and risk assessment, ensuring healthier communities, improving response capabilities, reducing community risk, and addressing health and safety concerns for response personnel.

As an example, a small community with 3,000 residential units, 1,200 apartment/multi-unit residences, 100 commercial occupancy locations, and a citizen and commercial tipping fee at a municipal dump could raise nearly $275,000 per year to support hazardous materials preparedness and response in the community.

What do you think?  Can it be done in your community?