Detroit incinerator’s burning issues

(MI) The Detroit News – If you eat, sleep or waste in Detroit, or Royal Oak or a dozen other local municipalities, chances are good your garbage will be shipped to the heart of this city where it will be incinerated and converted into steam, electricity and exhaust fumes that will be recycled into some citizen’s lungs. If you take a trip to the incinerator — or if you prefer the official Orwellian name, the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Facility — you are in for a view of the decadent, profligate habits of the American citizen and the protracted problem of trying to dispose of his detritus. More

Waste agency to restart pharmaceutical collections

(IL) Chicago Tribune – North Shore and northwest suburban residents can resume giving some old pharmaceuticals to the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County as long as those medications do not include controlled substances. SWANCC stopped collecting pharmaceuticals from member cities earlier this year after the federal Drug Enforcement Administration called its attention to a regulatory hitch: Patients cannot give controlled substances to anyone for disposal, except police departments. More

‘Dangerous’ conditions at preserve

(IL) Chicago Tribune – Environmental groups are raising concerns about the restoration of Miller Meadow, contending that the site poses hazards to visitors and the environment. Specifically, they are concerned about numerous shards of broken concrete, glass, brick and metal pipes that are scattered across the site — and the erosion that is carrying debris and gray sludge, used to promote vegetation, toward the nearby Des Plaines River.  More