Tag: landfills

3 things that could improve America’s recycling problem

Good Morning America: 3 things that could improve America’s recycling problem.

Many of us crush LaCroix cans, break down cardboard boxes and try really hard to get all that peanut butter out of the jar to put it in the recycling bin instead of the trash — a small victory for the environment. Or is it?

We’ve been told recycling is a great, green solution for our planet, but according to experts, our recycling system as it currently stands is broken.

“A lot of what’s happening in America right now with recycling plastic is that it’s actually going directly to landfills,” White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council member Jerome Foster II told “Good Morning America.”

Above the Fold – Week’s Best & Covid

Environmental Health News puts out weekend ‘summary’ emails, in addition to their daily emails.

EHN Week’s Best: April 16, 2021: forever chemicals on paper straws; Piney Point pollution; jails and environmental justice; DDT; PFAS; drought’s impact on farming water;  rechargeable batteries – real cost; Mexico and coal; heavy metals in children’s food; Japan dumping Fukushima’s radioactive water into the ocean.

EHN Covid: April 16, 2021: facemask garbage; underserved communities & J&J vaccine halt; green spaces & housing justice;  loosing women scientists; how to stop a pandemic.

New York Times Climate Fwd – January 27, 2021

Articles include: Biden’s Exec Orders; plight of sharks; firefighter’s toxic gear; emissions; landfills; Canada; weather

How Useful Is Recycling, Really?

The Atlantic: How Useful Is Recycling, Really? Among all possible climate actions, recycling ranks pretty low in its impact.

One of the few things Americans largely agree on is recycling. This simple act is popular with Democrats, Republicans, free-market diehards, and environmental advocates alike, data consistently show. And among recycling enthusiasts, one group is particularly keen—people already concerned about climate change.

This makes a certain intuitive sense, as recycling has well-documented benefits for the planet and can reduce carbon emissions. Still, as climate actions go, even the most committed recyclers caution that this one has clear limits.

“There are a lot of climate benefits to bolstering the recycling system,” Beth Porter, the author of Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System, told me. “But we also have to acknowledge that recycling is not among the highest-priority actions.”

Invisible menace: Methane flares scorching birds at U.S. landfills

National Geographic discusses an Invisible menace: Methane flares scorching birds at U.S. landfills. Waste facilities must dispose of methane gas by burning it off—but birds, particularly hawks and owls, are flying into the colorless flames.

In October, wildlife rehabilitators at the New Mexico Wildlife Center took in a red-tailed hawk with puzzling injuries. The raptor’s wings, normally padded with thick, dark-brown feathers, were so badly burned that they looked skeletal. Its chest and head were also scorched.

“It kind of looked like it ran through fire,” says Hilary DeVries, a wildlife rehabilitator at the center, located in Española. Staff thought the male bird had been electrocuted, perhaps by a power line. But he lacked entry or exit wounds, lesions, or sores—all signs of such an encounter.

What burned the bird, as the New Mexico rescuers soon found out, was methane flaring, a federally mandated practice for disposing of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, in landfills across the United States. Landfills use a device called a methane burner to convert the gas into water and carbon dioxide, which traps less heat in the atmosphere than methane. But as the burner’s flames shoot out of a tall exhaust pipe, or stack, at heights of up to 30 feet, they remain colorless—and birds can fly directly into them without warning. (Read why three billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970.)

While the problem of burned birds, mostly birds of prey, is widespread—documented cases exist in dozens of states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Colorado—there are no official counts of how many have been injured or killed. New Jersey’s cases have been more publicized, with several raptors treated at the state’s rescue centers.

The problem with recycling? One word: Plastics

Politico discusses the problem with recycling? One word: Plastics. No matter how well we sort, much of what we throw away cannot be reused.

You separate your trash, leave it to be collected and then it gets sorted in a waste facility, after which it’s turned into new things — that’s how recycling works, right?

Turns out it’s not that easy, especially when it comes to plastic.

Most experts agree that recycling is an important way to reduce waste and to recover valuable materials, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and conserving significant amounts of energy and water. And yet, of the 2.3 billion tons of waste generated in the EU each year, only 37 percent gets recycled.

Some materials, such as aluminum cans, glass and paper, are relatively easy to repurpose (Nearly three-quarters of this type of waste sees a new life as a consumer product.)

Connecticut DEEP rejects proposed overhaul of major WTE facility on cusp of closure

Waste Dive discusses how the Connecticut DEEP rejects proposed overhaul of major WTE facility on cusp of closure.

  • Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) recently rejected plans from the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA) to refurbish an aging refuse-derived fuel (RDF) facility for a capital cost of at least $330 million. Commissioner Katie Dykes called it “a false choice, and a bad deal” in a July 14 letter.
  • MIRA’s board previously identified exporting to out-of-state landfills as the only near-term alternative, but DEEP is calling for new ideas beyond solely converting the site to a transfer station. The letter asked for more attention to efforts in line with the state’s materials management strategy, such as organics diversion, recycling education and unit-based pricing to drive waste reduction.

Hartford trash-to-energy plant plans to ship waste out of state, scrapping renovation effort over lack of funding

Courant discusses how a Hartford. CT, trash-to-energy plant plans to ship waste out of state, scrapping renovation effort over lack of funding.

The regional trash-to-energy and recycling plant in Hartford’s South Meadows is abandoning its effort to renovate the aging facility, with officials of the quasi-state system saying a desperate lack of state funding is now forcing a return to trucking garbage out of state.

At a special meeting Thursday, the board of directors for the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority unanimously agreed to move on from a $333 million proposed plan to modernize and upgrade the old trash-incinerating plant and instead convert it into a transfer station.

“It’s a travesty,” Richard Barlow, vice chairman of the board of directors, said before the body’s vote. “It’s a great disappointment to me to be in the position where that is the only alternative.”

El Dorado plant destroying virus waste

Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette (nwaonline) discusses how an El Dorado hazardous waste plant is destroying virus waste.

A hazardous-waste facility in El Dorado is incinerating hundreds of containers full of infectious waste per week produced during the coronavirus testing and decontamination efforts taking place in the mid-Atlantic region and neighboring Southern states.

The facility, owned by the national environmental services company Clean Harbors, recently requested a temporary waiver from the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality to expedite the incineration process for covid-19 waste during the outbreak. The agency granted the request April 14.

The temporary authorization is one of a number of requests submitted to the agency and the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment in recent weeks seeking regulatory relief during the crisis.

Like federal environmental regulators, earlier this month the state agency issued provisional guidance relaxing testing, permitting and enforcement for regulated entities such as landfills, utility companies and manufacturing plants on a case-by-case basis if the operators of these facilities believe they cannot comply with regulations because of the outbreak.