Shoe thrown at Hillary Clinton at Vegas speech “Hillary Rodham Clinton was ready with a quip after a woman threw a shoe at her as she took the stage for a Las Vegas speech. Security at the Mandalay Bay casino resort ushered out the woman, who is now in federal custody after the incident at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries meeting. ‘My goodness, I didn't know that solid waste management was so controversial,’ Clinton said. ‘Thank goodness she didn't play softball like I did.’” (USA Today)

Michigan seeks to crack down on metal theft with new law signed by Gov. Rick Snyder “Michigan law enforcement officers and prosecutors will have new tools to fight metal thieves under bipartisan legislation signed into law Thursday by Gov. Rick Snyder. The new law, years in the making, caps direct cash transactions for metal at $25 and requires scrap yards to mail payments to an address provided by the seller of commonly stolen items: catalytic converters, air conditioners and copper wiring. (Mlive.com)

Microsoft Ready to Excavate Atari’s Alleged E.T. Landfill on April 26th “A persistent legend in the gaming community is that, in 1983, Atari buried millions of unsold copies of Atari 2600 games E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Pac-Man in a New Mexico landfill following their colossal retail and critical failures. Now, after years of speculation and negotiations, a documentary crew from Fuel Entertainment, with funding from Microsoft’s Xbox Entertainment Studios, is about to excavate Atari’s rumored dumping site for a film titled Dumping the Alien.” (TekRevue.com)

Minnesota needs a recycling jump-start “Yogurt and margarine tubs are ‘all in’ now in St. Paul. Same goes for deli plastic containers and transparent produce shells. You can put them in the same curbside recycling bin as your cereal boxes and this newspaper (after reading it thoroughly, of course). As of this week, single-stream recycling, aka ‘single sort,’ has come to St. Paul. That’s a change worth cheering, as Mayor Chris Coleman and assorted city officials did on Monday at the ‘All In’ kickoff. But it’s also a change that’s been slow in coming — and not just because single sort already has been the rule for some time in Minneapolis and several forward-thinking Twin Cities suburbs.” (StarTribune.com)

N.D. rules aimed at illegal oilfield waste dumping “North Dakota's oil industry is backing new rules intended to crack down on the illegal dumping of radioactive oil filter socks, the tubular nets that strain liquids during the oil production process. ‘Our members have committed to protecting our resources,’ said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, which represents more than 500 companies working in the state's oil patch. ‘The industry wants to see an end to illegal dumping, too.’ Beginning June 1, drillers will be required to dispose of filter socks in covered, leak-proof containers on site, according to the state Department of Mineral Resources. The containers must then be collected by a licensed waste hauler and disposed of at an authorized facility out of state.” (Associated Press)

What a Waste: US Campaign Targets Why We Trash 133 Billion Pounds of Food a Year “But to Elise Golan, food waste looks like low-hanging fruit. Her mission as director of sustainable development for the US Department of Agriculture: Start picking. Within the past year, she has helped launch the Food Waste Challenge—a campaign to coax companies, schools, and government agencies to keep more food out of landfills. ‘The issue first caught my attention because I was reading so much about feeding the world in 2050, given our constrained resources and a growing population,’ says Golan, who earned her Ph. D. in agricultural economics from UC Berkeley and was consulting for the World Bank at the time. Feeding the World by 2050 is a long-term, easy-to-remember goal often promoted by international development organizations such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.” (California Magazine)

Waipahu Landfill Cleanup to Continue Under New EPA Agreement “The City of Honolulu has agreed to continue remediation efforts at the old Waipahu landfill, where garbage was burned from 1972 until the site was closed in 1991. Under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the city will embark on a second cleanup phase, which will include assessing human health and ecological risks from residual contamination, evaluating cleanup alternatives and studying the extent of the ash remaining in the soil. The city may also install more monitoring wells to test for groundwater contamination.” (Honolulu Civil Beat)

Finger Lakes Landfill Summit envisions a zero-waste future “Ontario County’s lease with Casella Waste Systems Inc. to run the county landfill is up in 2028, and the next 14 years should be spent preparing to close the landfill, two county supervisors said Wednesday at the second Finger Lakes Landfill Summit at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. ’This is exciting,’ said Ontario County Supervisor Charlie Evangelista, who represents the city of Geneva on the Board of Supervisors. ‘The needs are great but this is important and I believe we have the will, the interest and the conviction to do it.’” (Victor Post)

Waste business not permitted to relocate to Menomonee Falls “A Milwaukee-based industrial waste treatment business that has been the subject of odor complaints from its neighbors will not be permitted to relocate to Menomonee Falls at this time, the village plan commission decided Wednesday. The commission found the business objectionable and that its proposed uses of the property would be prohibited. Village President Randall Newman was applauded by residents when he explained his vote. ‘I think it's a nuisance to the surrounding area,’ he said. (Journal Sentinel)

Improvements to mercury-light disposal program signed into law “Following the legislative session, Gov. Jay Inslee endorsed a program update for disposing lights containing mercury. Sen. Joe Fain (R-Auburn) and Auburn City Councilmember Bill Peloza worked to secure passage of the changes. The legislation updates an existing stewardship program created in 2010 to facilitate responsible disposal of lights with mercury given the public health and environmental dangers.” (Auburn Reporter)