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Tag: recycling

  • Waste Done Right

    - by Ruth Tyson, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network In 2012, Amer­i­cans dis­posed of 251 mil­lion tons of trash, accord­ing to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA). The Sto­ry of Stuff Project neat­ly lays out the way mate­ri­als move through our econ­o­my from extrac­tion to pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, con­sump­tion, and dis­pos­al. Most con­sumers don’t think beyond the “con­sump­tion”…

  • One Bin for All?

    - by Melanie Scrug­gs, Texas Cam­paign for the Environment Right now, the City of Hous­ton is expand­ing its two-bin or “sin­gle-stream” recy­cling pro­gram to final­ly cov­er all the near­ly 350,000 homes that it ser­vices. As an avid zero waster, you may be think­ing two things: 1. It is fan­tas­tic that Hous­to­ni­ans final­ly have access to a…

  • Zero Waste to Landfill: How Incinerators Get Promoted

    - by Car­o­line Eader The incin­er­a­tor indus­try pro­motes a false belief that the only choic­es we have in han­dling our waste is to either burn it for ener­gy or to bury it in a land­fill. The exis­tence of what is known as a “waste-to-ener­gy” (WTE) facil­i­ty does not elim­i­nate the need for a land­fill. First, 10%…

  • Dirty Energy Ash Blamed for Toxic Soil in Greenwich, CT

    - by Bill Cum­mings, Decem­ber 28, 2014, CT Post The dis­cov­ery of PCBs and oth­er con­t­a­m­i­nants at Green­wich High School two years ago is only part of a mosa­ic of can­cer-caus­ing tox­i­cs that have cropped up at var­i­ous sites around one of the nation’s wealth­i­est, most exclu­sive communities. Pol­lu­tants have now been con­firmed at three oth­er loca­tions in Green­wich,…

  • City of Allentown, PA Terminates Contract for Waste Incinerator

    - by Allen­town Res­i­dents for Clean Air, Sep­tem­ber 30, 2014, Stop the Burn The City of Allen­town is pulling out of the con­tract with Delta Ther­mo Energy. This news sure­ly spells the death of the exper­i­men­tal trash and sewage sludge incin­er­a­tor that threat­ens Allentown. HOWEVER, the company’s air and waste per­mits are still out there. The air per­mit could be sold…

  • Composting vs. Waste-to-Energy: The Politics Of Green Waste

    - by Stephen Han­d­ley, Octo­ber 3, 2014, Sus­tain­ablog In Tul­sa, Okla­homa, green waste is very much on the polit­i­cal agen­da. Accord­ing to Tul­sa World, the city’s trash board vot­ed this week to pur­sue a plan to col­lect and incin­er­ate it rather than invest in an active com­post­ing facil­i­ty. Pro­po­nents of the com­post­ing plan are deeply dis­ap­point­ed by…

  • Covanta Incineration Deal Discourages Rival Recycling Programs

    - Kath­leen McLaugh­lin, August 4, 2014, Indi­anapo­lis Busi­ness Journal The city of Indi­anapo­lis faces finan­cial penal­ties if it launch­es alter­na­tive recy­cling pro­grams, under a pend­ing deal with incin­er­a­tor oper­a­tor Covanta. The Indi­anapo­lis Board of Pub­lic Works will vote Wednes­day on an agree­ment that’s worth more than $112 mil­lion in rev­enue to Cov­an­ta, which would become the…

  • Zero Waste Hierarchy

    You’ve prob­a­bly heard the term Zero Waste before, but not been sure about what it meant The peer-reviewed def­i­n­i­tion of Zero Waste by Zero Waste Inter­na­tion­al Alliance involves “design­ing and man­ag­ing prod­ucts and process­es to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly avoid and elim­i­nate the vol­ume and tox­i­c­i­ty of waste and mate­ri­als, con­serve and recov­er all resources, and not burn or bury them.” Notice…

  • Maryland Dumps Incineration

    - by Mike Ewall, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network VICTORY!!  For a sec­ond year in a row, pro-incin­er­a­tor leg­is­la­tion in Mary­land was defeat­ed.  This stealthy leg­is­la­tion was writ­ten by Cov­an­ta (the nation’s largest trash incin­er­a­tion com­pa­ny) and would put Mary­land on the path to burn­ing near­ly all of the waste that isn’t recycled.  The leg­is­la­tion takes the Renew­able Port­fo­lio…