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Thurston County Public Health expands safer‑cleaning outreach and pesticide guidance tools
Summary
Public‑health staff reported increased community outreach, distributor and child‑care center trainings, safer‑cleaning kit distributions and a major web refresh; environmental‑health staff also described the county's 'Grow Smart Grow Safe' pesticide guidance and ongoing product reclassification work.
Jennifer Johnson of Thurston County Public Health and Social Services told the Solid Waste Advisory Committee on April 2 that environmental‑health staff are stepping up household hazardous‑materials education and partner outreach.
Johnson described a menu of workshops (including Beyond Bleach child‑care center trainings and safer‑cleaner demonstrations), point‑of‑purchase education and a targeted distribution strategy for safer‑cleaning kits to vulnerable populations through the Family Support Center and nurse‑family partnerships. "We're pacing out to distribute about twice as many of those safer cleaning kits as we did last year," Johnson said, noting the program distributed 250 kits in 2025 and had reached 135 kits in the first quarter of 2026.
Kimberly Graham, who leads environmental‑health technical programs, reviewed compliance and permitting work (a complaint‑based solid‑waste enforcement system that handles roughly 200 new complaints per biennium), pollution‑prevention site assistance for small‑quantity generators, used‑oil network oversight, contaminated‑property response, and the county's online pesticide and landscape guidance hosted at Grow Smart Grow Safe. Graham described an ongoing product‑classification effort that ranks pesticides by human, animal and aquatic hazards and links to current EPA labels to help landscapers and residents choose lower‑risk options.
Staff highlighted an updated set of web pages intended to simplify public access to hazardous‑waste and consumer guidance and asked the committee to refer community partners and child‑care centers to the county site for workshop requests and resource downloads.
Committee members thanked staff and asked about library rack distribution (most county libraries are included) and Spanish translations for outreach materials; staff said they are translating the new recycling/organics guide into Spanish and are using imagery to reduce language barriers where possible.
