When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, hand sanitizer quickly became tough to find in stores, so New York state prison inmates started producing gallons of it for distribution. Now there are hundreds of thousands of gallons just sitting in storage at the New York State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany, and most of it has expired.
“The pandemic happened and you can’t fault the state trying to do something to keep people safe and healthy, but I think they overdid it and now, you had over 700,000 I think gallons of this sanitizer sitting on a runway in my district,” NYS Senator Joe Griffo told News 10.
According to Spectrum News, the state has entered into an agreement with the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester to dispose of and recycle 168 tractor-trailer loads of the expired hand sanitizer. Kodak will distill it to extract isopropyl alcohol for reuse in manufacturing; the process began last week and will take approximately 44 weeks to complete.
The New York State Department of Environment Conservation says hand sanitizer is usually ignitible due to its high alcohol waste and considered to be hazardous waste.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, Kodak, along with many other companies, readily responded to the State’s need for isopropyl alcohol (IPA) that would aid in the production of hand sanitizer. Just as we mobilized to provide this essential ingredient when it was needed, we are now mobilizing our established capabilities to remove and recycle the excess material safely and responsibly,” the company said in a statement.
News 10 reports the services are part of a $2.32 million agreement with Kodak through February 2024. According to WRGB, the state spent approximately $4.3 million on the unused hand sanitizer, bringing the total cost to more than $6.6 million.
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