Excess Hand Sanitizer a Headache for New York Officials

When the pandemic first began, hand sanitizer was hard to find and many businesses/organizations got creative in producing it. The governor of New York at the time, Andrew Cuomo, came up with a plan to have prison inmates at three state correctional facilities produce sanitizer from March 2020 to October 2020.

The plan was so successful, the inmates produced too much sanitizer. Now New York state officials are trying to figure out what to do with about 700,000 gallons of hand sanitizer, much of which has expired, European Cleaning Journal reports.

Since the flammable liquid needs to stored outdoors to meet fire code regulations, the expired hand sanitizer is currently under tarpaulin on an old runway at the New York State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany, New York It occupies 4,000 pallets stretching the length of three football fields.

“There is a way to properly dispose of it—but the issue here is volume,” said Diana Aga, director of the RENEW Institute at the University of Buffalo, which studies environmental issues. She said officials believe the cost of disposal could run into millions of dollars and would require hundreds of trucks to ship it out for incineration.

In the meantime, New York officials plan to sell the units that have not expired yet at an auction this summer—no doubt at a steep discount—and give the proceeds to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Politico reports.