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Senate Bill 936 Nitrous Oxide Ban Letter of Support
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Requested Action(s)
recommendation
Authorize the Agency Manager to sign the letter of support for Senate Bill 936 (Blakespear), as presented.
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Financial Impact:
None.
Background Information:
Senate Bill 936 bans the sale of nitrous oxide, which is widely used as an illicit recreational inhalant. Aside from serious public health and safety impacts associated with its illicit use as a party drug, large nitrous oxide cylinders are a growing and expensive waste management problem.
The cost for the Agency to dispose of these cylinders when collected at our Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) facility is $40 per cylinder, however, we do not receive many of them at our facility. Instead, most of the cylinders come through our recycling facility from the collection programs, which Waste Connections must handle as a load check waste. It is difficult to determine if these cylinders are empty, like single-use propane cylinders, requiring them to be managed as HHW.
Given the above considerations to reduce costs to the public and reducing public health and safety impacts from illicit use, the Agency is requesting authorization to sign the attached letter of support for SB 936.