From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):
One of the first environmental lessons you may have learned growing up was the importance of recycling.
That’s why it was so shocking last fall when the Pennsylvania General Assembly cut $50 million from Pennsylvania’s recycling programs, putting recycling efforts across the state in jeopardy.
We can’t let that happen again in 2021. Go to https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=44352 tell state legislators: support recycling programs, don’t slash their funding.
Pennsylvania’s Recycling Fund is the program that’s predominantly responsible for funding recycling efforts in the state. This fund plays a crucial role in bolstering local recycling programs across the state, and ensuring that smaller communities have the funds that they need to keep their recycling programs afloat. Yet as part of the November 2020 state budget, our elected officials in Harrisburg diverted $50 million out of this fund that had been allocated to support local and county recycling programs.1
This funding loss couldn’t come at a worse time. Municipalities across Pennsylvania are already limiting what they can collect or dropping their community recycling programs — paper and glass recycling is being suspended at sites in Erie and Pittsburgh, Cambria County is refusing plastics, and Montour County is cancelling recycling drop-offs altogether.2,3,4,5
Our legislators in Harrisburg will be finalizing next year’s state budget in the upcoming weeks, so it’s critical that they hear this critical message from their constituents now: stop harming our recycling programs.
Tell your state representative and senator: fund recycling.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: it’s a crucial piece of the zero waste puzzle. But these efforts can’t work if our politicians leave them cash strapped and struggling.
Thanks for reaching out to your representative and senator in support of the Recycling Fund, and telling your friends and neighbors to take action too.
- David Hess, “DEP Cancels 2021 Recycling Implementation Grant Round Because General Assembly Took $50 Million From Recycling Fund To Balance State Budget,” PA Environment Digest, January 22, 2021.
- Valerie Myers, “Waste Management recycling center options, hours cut,” GoErie.com, May 29, 2018.
- Stephanie Hacke, “Recycling guidelines changing throughout South Hills,” TribLive, December 20, 2018.
- Cambria County Solid Waste Authority, “NEWS: Plastic Recycling Suspended at the Blue Recycle Bins,” Patton Township, August 26, 2020.
- Joe Sylvester, “Recycling in the Valley: Municipalities cut programs, see fewer people recycling,” The Daily Item, April 20, 2019.
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