Municipal Survey Work Begins:

PROP is conducting an important survey for municipalities throughout Pennsylvania in conjunction with a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Solid Waste Management Grant.  While the grant work focuses on raising awareness and improving waste management in rural Pennsylvania, the survey will explore quality of life issues of all kinds throughout all the Commonwealth’s municipalities.  As an incentive to respond, non-PROP members will receive our most recent publications and all respondents will receive free admission to our next Municipal Roundtable Forums in April.  Several lucky winners will also receive $50 off a year’s membership or registration to the annual PROP conference in Scranton.

We hope our municipal members will help make this survey effort successful.  It is our hope that we will gain valuable insight into the challenges confronting municipalities so as to better advocate for funding and determine the need for technical assistance to address important recycling and quality of life issues.  But we need exceptional response rates to enhance the credibility and validity of the survey.  Simply click on this link – http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=DS_2byMyGyI4FlYengYJtH4w_3d_3d and complete the survey.  It takes less than 15 minutes to complete. 

Act 101, Section 904, Recycling Performance Grants

Recycling Program Performance Grants are available to all Pennsylvania local governments with recycling programs. The grants awards are based on the total tons recycled and the applicant’s recycling rate.

Post-consumer aluminum and steel cans, glass, plastics, corrugated cardboard, newspapers and other marketable grades of paper are materials eligible for the grants. All eligible materials collected from residents, business, schools, colleges, universities and community events can be factored into the grant awards.

Applicants must retain documentation demonstrating that materials claimed in the application were eligible for the grant, generated within the applicant’s boundaries, and were recycled or marketed in the year covered by the application. Residues from the collection and/or marketing of recyclable materials are not eligible for grant consideration. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) administers the program under Section 904 of Act 101, the Municipal Waste Planing, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act.

Act 140 Impacts on Act 101 Recycling Performance Grants

Act 101 mandated curbside municipalities and other municipalities, except for counties, receiving more than $10,000 in Act 101 Section 904 Recycling Performance Grant funding must meet the following performance requirements:

• Requires, through ordinance, that all residents have waste and recycling service.
• Has an implemented residential recycling program and facilitates a commercial recycling program or participates in a similar county or multi-municipal program.
• Has a residential and business recycling education program.
• Has a program of enforcement that periodically monitors participation, receives complaints and issues warnings for required participants and provides fines, penalties, or both, in its recycling ordinance.
• Has provisions, participates in a county or multi-municipal program or facilitates a private sector program for the recycling of special materials.
• Sponsors a program, facilitates a program or supports an organization to address illegal dumping and/or littering problems.
• Has a person or entity designated as recycling coordinator who is responsible for recycling data collection and reporting recycling program performance in the municipality or municipalities.

If the municipality has not met the above performance requirements, the grant funds awarded shall be expended by the municipality only to meet the performance requirements. If the municipality has met the performance requirements, the grant funds awarded may be expended by the municipality on any expense as determined in the discretion of the municipality. The Department may require budget documents or other expenditure records and may deny funding through this Section if an applicant cannot demonstrate that funds have been expended on eligible activities.

• Applications for Calendar Year 2007 Recycling Performance Grants will be available from the Department’s eLibrary by May, 2008. Applications are due by September 30, 2008. Applications will also be mailed to potential applicants sometime between late June and early July.
  • To access the form from the eLibrary, use the link below or follow these instructions: Go to www.depweb.state.pa.us, select "Forms and Publications" from the left hand section of the home page, then select "Forms," "Waste Management," "Recycling," and finally "Municipal Recycling Program Performance Grants 904." You may then pull up the form in Word or adobe.
  • Link: coming soon
    • or try this link to the application and commercial recycling report form
  • Please contact Mark Vottero at 717-772-5719 or email at mvottero@state.pa.us if you have any questions.
  • Contact: Bureau of Waste Management, 717-787-7382.