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AUGUSTA — This October, the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Board of Pesticides Control will team up with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to help Mainers dispose of unusable and waste pesticides.
Collections will occur in Presque Isle, Bangor, Augusta, and Portland.
Participants must pre-register by Friday, Sept. 29. Drop-ins are not permitted.
The collected chemicals will be taken to out-of-state disposal facilities licensed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, where they are incinerated or reprocessed.
The Obsolete Pesticides Collection Program, jointly sponsored by the BPC and DEP, and funded through pesticide product registration fees, has kept more than 99 tons of pesticides out of the waste stream since its start in 1982, said a news relesae from the agriculture department. The free annual program is open to homeowners, family-owned farms and greenhouses.
Pesticides may become unusable because of age, freezing or evaporation, or because their legal registration changes. It is important to remember that the term “pesticides” includes not only insecticides, but also herbicides, fungicides and rodenticides. Past participants in the program have reported finding obsolete pesticides in barns of inherited properties, garages of newly purchased homes and other unexpected places.
To register, get details, and learn important information about the temporary storage and transportation of obsolete pesticides, go to the BPC Web site at thinkfirstspraylast.org , or call 207-287-2731.
