10 Things You Need to Know For the Waste & Recycling Industry Today (July 14, 2014)10 Things You Need to Know For the Waste & Recycling Industry Today (July 14, 2014)

Houston's Experimental Recycling Plan Targets Minority Neighborhoods for Waste Facility “The Zero Waste Houston Coalition, a group of community and recycling advocates, released a new report, It's Smarter to Separate: How Houston's Trash Proposal Would Waste Our Resources, Pollute Our Air and Harm Our Community's Health, Thursday on the steps of Houston City Hall. The report details environmental problems and challenges facing the its "One Bin for All" trash experiment Houston is proposing to jumpstart its recycling program. It also documents the environmental justice and civil rights implications of the City giving preference to existing landfills for the location of its new One Bin for All waste facility. Houston since the 1920s has had a seedy history of locating its landfills, incinerators and garbage transfer stations exclusively in mostly African American and Latino neighborhoods.” (OpedNews.com)

Community Members Oppose New Landfill “Hundreds of residents gather in Riverton to discuss the Galena City Council's decision to place a landfill in their area. Earlier this week, the Galena City Council voted to place a landfill in northwest Riverton. The landfill will be located off US-69 at the intersection of Lostine. Members of the community, held a special meeting this afternoon at Riverton High School to oppose the landfill. At the meeting, a committee was selected to lead the people in an effort to reverse the Galena City Council's decision. Many community members live within a mile of where the new landfill will be and were very emotional in sharing why they do not want the landfill in their area. They say they are determined to make a change.” (FourStatesHomePage.com)

Hawaii Department of Health reaches settlement with Maui and Molokai landfills “The Hawaii State Department of Health and the County of Maui Department of Environmental Management have reached a settlement with the Central Maui Municipal Solid Waste Landfill and the Molokai Integrated Solid Waste Management facility on two cases concerning solid waste violations. The settlement involves a cash penalty of $70,000 and a supplemental environmental project, which is a household hazardous waste collection program for Maui, Molokai and Lanai. The project is valued at about $70,000 and will run during the 2015 fiscal year.” (Pacific Business News)

Judge approves Creative Recycling Systems receivership “A judge in Tampa has approved a motion to place Creative Recycling Systems into receivership, as related to the lawsuit filed by Regions Bank. After Creative Recycling Systems LLC and an affiliated LLC filed a non-opposition notice on Thursday, Judge Steven D. Merryday in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida approved the motion, which Regions filed alongside its original multimillion-dollar lawsuit in May.” (Tampa Bay Business Journal)

San Francisco's Recycling Claims Are Garbage “If you toss an apple core into a composting box and it ends up in a landfill, has it been recycled? In most places, the answer would be a simple ‘no.’ Not in San Francisco. There, thanks to creative and perfectly legal waste accounting, that apple core can end up in a landfill and still be officially considered recycled. One might think of it as ‘Schrodinger’s trash’ (being both landfill and compost at the same time), and its environmental benefits are worthy of debate. What’s not debatable, however, is that without this magical transformation, San Francisco’s gaudy 80 percent diversion rate (the amount of waste the city diverts from landfills into recycling) would be significantly lower, calling into question the title of ‘greenest city in the United States and Canada.’” (BloombergView)

Keystone landfill now allowed to receive waste fracking fluid “The landfill owned by businessman Louis DeNaples has been cleared to accept a different kind of waste from the Marcellus Shale industry. On Wednesday, the Department of Environmental Protection approved a solid waste disposal permit modification allowing Keystone Sanitary Landfill to process water-based drilling fluid waste for the purpose of separating solid material to dump. The separated drilling liquid is to be returned to industry operators for reuse, with the solid waste remaining on site for processing with other natural gas production waste material, the approval letter says.” (TimesLeader.com)

Energy officials discuss German waste in SC “U.S. Energy Department officials say the German government is paying researchers at the Savannah River Site near Aiken to study how to handle waste that might be sent to South Carolina. The research is focused on how to separate materials in the waste. Gary DeLeon with the Energy Department says if the material is processed, an easier way is needed to handle it. DeLeon says a method has been developed to separate the highly enriched uranium. It could be blended to make fuel for nuclear reactors.” (Associated Press)

State cites Wilmington compost plant for new violations “Residents in some south Wilmington communities are miffed about state silence on odor concerns in a new violation report on the Peninsula Compost LLC site near the Port of Wilmington and the damaged I-495 bridge. Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials cited the company for ‘abundant’ accumulations of prohibited wastes – mainly plastic bags – in unapproved locations at its facility, and for exceeding limits on yard and wood waste piles.” (DelawareOnline)

Incinerator exit ignites recycling in Biddeford “Public Works Director Guy Casavant was confident that Biddeford would embrace curbside recycling, but he didn’t expect the city to triple its recycling rate and save $220,000 in the first year. ‘Whenever you change something that’s near and dear to everyone’s heart like trash is, it’s a bit of a culture shock,’ Casavant said.” (PressHerald.com)

Stony Point to explore food waste processing on river “As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and Stony Point's supervisor takes it literally. Geoffrey Finn is exploring the idea of hosting a food waste processing facility to bring more revenue into the town.” (LoHud.com)