Clean Sweep Programs - US Environmental Protection Agency

The Clean Sweep ReportNorth Carolina held the first Clean Sweepprogram in 1980. Iowa, Maine and North Dakotafollowed with programs in the early eighties. Thesestates recognized early on that farmers wereaccumulating unwanted pesticides and that, withoutan affordable method of proper disposal, the statesfaced risks from contamination by these unwantedpesticides. Other states initiated Clean Sweeps and,as shown in Figure 10, the number of states withClean Sweep programs increased rapidly from thelate 1980s to the mid 1990s. Since 1995, thenumber of states with programs has remainedrelatively constant, ranging from 30 to 34 states.The number of states with permanently fundedprograms has followed a similar pattern. There wasa quick increase in the first half of the 1990s with asteady but slower increase from 17 to 21 statessince 1995.One measure of a program’s success islongevity. Figure 11 identifies the 22 states that haveoperated Clean Sweep programs for at least sevenyears. In addition, Table 10 lists program informationfor each state, including the category, active orinactive status, year of its first collection, number ofyears of collection and, for permanently funded andcontinuous programs, the year it achieved thatstatus.3.2 How many pounds of pesticideshave Clean Sweep programscollected?Based on the data states have reported toEPA, it is estimated that Clean Sweep programshave collected over 24 million pounds of unwantedpesticides from 1980 through 2000.FIGURE 10 Number of States with Clean Sweep Programs per Year3530323330333234Number of States2520151050402 21 152103175126169Pre 86 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00Year181423151718 182020 21All ProgramsPermanently funded programs33