Pennsylvania Resources Council

Pennsylvania Resources Council is a statewide environmental organization dedicated to the vision of a Pennsylvania where nothing is wasted. We steward resources to prevent waste and conserve the environment – building awareness, enabling action, and supporting systems change.

We educate people of all ages to steward the environment.

We provide training, technical assistance, and on-the-ground support for businesses, nonprofit organizations, and local government to help them waste less and recycle right.

We provide convenient and responsible opportunities for community members to reuse, recycle, and safely manage goods and food waste.

We build community capacity to protect watersheds and manage stormwater runoff.

We collaborate with all of our partners to develop programs and initiatives in pursuit of equitable, just environmental outcomes. And we advocate and share expertise in pursuit of sound environmental practice and a more circular economy.

We are looking to increase our organization's service capacity in Washington County. 

For several years, PRC has held a once-annual Household Chemical Collection event for Washington County residents in the summer, where each year several hundred residents safely recycle household hazardous chemicals, and additionally in recent years, tires. Through funding from the Washington County Planning Commission, we receive the funding to put on one of these events per year, but we hear time and time again from Washington residents that they wish there was additional service. 

The costs to mobilize and execute one of these events are high, due to the fact that these materials are very expensive to safely store, transport, process, and recycle, and the lack of additional funding prevents us from facilitating more opportunities for Washington residents to recycle these hazardous materials. 

The need for safe and affordable opportunities to recycle these materials always persists. 

Residents often do not know the best way to manage these materials they have, and without increased opportunities, the more likely it is for these materials to be mismanaged, placed in the garbage, left on the roadside, or worse, dumped over the hillside to ultimately damage and destroy local ecosystems, resources and pollute our air, water, and soil. 

For PRC to be given the funding to mobilize a second Household Chemical Collection or Tire Recycling Event, it would be a tremendous step forward in raising the the bar for Washington County's environmental protection and empowering our fellow residents to keep their community safe and more green.