Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/category/waste/page/14/)
Everything from litter to nuclear waste.
Success means reducing waste and dumping fees while creating a new revenue stream.
The research is also spurred by consumers who value alternatives to petroleum-based building blocks of other products.
In his spare time Chicago resident Joe Miller runs what may be the coolest eco-friendly company with the coolest name ever. Print-A-Forest makes a free computer software that turns your routine printing projects into a plant-a-tree fundraiser. By getting a small message from plant-a-tree sponsors across the bottom of your printed pages, you pay for planting trees. An example: “Powered by State Farm” could appear on the bottom of the page if the insurance company sponsored the planting. Pretty simple.
Under proposed legislation, some Michigan landfills would only need one instead of two liners to keep them from contaminating the environment.
The United Press International (UPI) reports that the Canadian energy company, Bruce Power, has decided against shipping steam generators loaded with nuclear waste through the Great Lakes region. U.S. Rep. Candice Miller received the information from Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, UPI reported.
Michigan lawmakers want a Nevada disposal site to start accepting nuclear waste.
The state’s waste from nuclear power plants is now stored on-site, although ratepayers have paid $760 million toward a proposed national repository.
(MI) Detroit Free Press – The stunning 16% drop in trash going into Michigan landfills for the year ending last Sept. 30 is as good a barometer as any of how poorly the state fared during that time. Michigan trash alone dropped 13%; waste from outside the state, including Canadian trash, failed to materialize by an even wider margin. And here’s another way to look at the numbers: Michigan’s household trash dropped 11%; the other categories, mostly industrial and construction waste, dropped 19%. Maybe some people are recycling more, but more likely everyone’s simply producing less trash — nowhere as obviously as at factories and construction sites.
(IL) Chicago Tribune – Joliet is pushing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to more than double the concentration of cancer-causing radium it’s allowed to dump onto farmland in the south suburbs, expanding the potential for deadly radon gas in these increasingly urban communities. Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive element abundant in deep-water wells in northern Illinois and throughout the Midwest. Cities such as Joliet that rely on these deep wells spend millions of dollars each year to remove radium from their drinking water. Some communities pay to dump radium in a landfill, but Joliet and others use a cheaper alternative, mixing it with waste material that is sold to farmers as fertilizer. More
(MI) Detroit Free Press – The amount of trash in Michigan landfills is shrinking. While that might sound like good news, the numbers are so low that state officials warned today it means there’s not enough revenue to cover landfill inspections to make sure they meet requirements. The state’s solid waste tracking and inspection is funded by a fee of 21 cents per ton on the trash that gets dumped in Michigan landfills. More
(MI) Lansing State Journal – Lansing’s curbside recycling dropped in 2009, but the city’s attempt to collect recyclables should become more efficient, convenient and bountiful in 2010, officials say. After introducing plans more than a year ago to start single-stream recycling, which minimizes the need for separating materials, Lansing plans to debut key aspects of its program next summer. More
(MI) Grand Rapids Press – For those resolving to do better by the environment in 2010, one way to do so is by taking a class such as “Global Warming: Changing Course” starting Jan. 6 at the Grand Rapids Public Library. The discussion course will examine the history and science of global warming, and how individuals can change their personal habits to reduce their impact on the environment. “With a new year a lot of people are looking to make a fresh start and make some changes in their lives,” said Kristen Krueger-Corrado, library spokeswoman. “We thought this course dovetailed nicely with looking at their lifestyle differently.” More