Township joins call to keep recycling grant funds

TOWAMENCIN » Township officials are adding their voice to a call for the Pennsylvania Legislature to keep recycling grant money intact.

Towamencin supervisors voted Wednesday night to ask state lawmakers not to divert recycling grant money to help balance the state’s budget.

“It’s all part of Act 101, which was started in the late 1980s or early ’90s, when recycling was all new to us. And now it’s become, at least in my household, second nature,” said Township Manager Rob Ford.

According to Ford and supervisors’ Chairman Chuck Wilson, that Act 101, formally known as the Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act, spells out mandates that municipalities establish local recycling programs, distribute public education literature, facilitate technical training, and reimburse local towns for those costs based on the tonnage of materials they recycle.

Towamencin is one of 11 local municipalities that do so through the Northern Montgomery County Recycling Commission, as is North Wales borough, which passed a similar motion Tuesday night.

That commission “has alerted its member communities that Pennsylvania Act 44 of 2017 directs the Budget Secretary to transfer $300 million from amounts available in restricted accounts, including the recycling fund, to the state general fund during the 20172018 fiscal year,” Wilson said.

“Diversion of these recycling funds to the general operations of the commonwealth would be contrary to the intent of Act 101,” he said.

Towamencin typically receives roughly $48,000 to $50,000 each year in recycling grant money, according to Ford, and uses it to provide public information about recycling, host recycling events, and inform residents of them. For 2018, an electronics recycling event is currently being scheduled for 8 a.m. to noon on June 23 at North Penn High School, and Ford said specifics will be announced in the coming weeks but residents should save that date, since Montgomery County now holds fewer public electronics recycling events because of funding cuts several years ago.

“So people like myself have been keeping things in their basement, and when these (events) pop up, you’ve got to remember, put that note on your refrigerator, to remember when they have these events and take those things out there, because trash companies won’t take things like TVs and monitors,” he said.

The supervisors voted unanimously to voice their opposition to diverting the funds and to contact local lawmakers to voice that opinion, and supervisor Jim Sinz said it’s not the first time they have done something similar.

“They took 40 percent of that money away as a going-away gift from Governor Rendell, and never restored that, even though we sent numerous letters to our elected officials,” said Sinz.

Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Towamencin.org.