What To Do with 700K Gallons of Hand Sanitizer

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York churned out tons of greenish hand sanitizer that was bottled up and placed in public buildings throughout the state. But now, with the worst of it seemingly past the state, it’s stuck with 700,000 unused gallons of the stuff.According to Democrat & Chronicle, all the NYS Clean hand sanitizer is sitting on the runway at a state training facility near Utica while the state decides what to do with it. Then-Governor Andrew Cuomo said the bottles cost approximately $6.10 to make so the publication estimates the unused sanitizer carries a cost of about $4.3 million.New York State Senator Joseph Griffo last week wrote to Governor Kathy Hochul, urging the state to consider all options for disposing of the unused sanitizer. He expressed concerns over potential plans to ship the sanitizer out of state and have it incinerated, stating that it would likely be a costly endeavor.Griffo suggested alternatives including using waste to energy conversion facilities to transform the sanitizer into heat, electricity and other sources of power. He also said cosmetic companies might buy the sanitizer and use the isopropyl alcohol for manufacturing makeup, lotions and fragrances.These seem like good ideas but they don’t involve a massive hand sanitizer inferno, which sounds kinda cool.