Ontario’s Environment Minister Jim Bradley last week introduced a new Waste Reduction Act and Strategy, which would make numerous changes to the province’s solid waste and recycling management, including doing away with controversial eco fees on electronics purchases. The long-awaited Waste Reduction Act would replace the 2002 Waste Diversion Act and make some significant changes to how Ontario’s solid waste...

Nearly 959 million smartphones will be shipped in 2013, according to the latest estimates from International Data Corp. The 33 percent year-over-year increase in global shipments also represents the first time that smartphone shipments will eclipse conventional cell phones, according to IDC. Much of this growth is expected to come from emerging markets, which will account for 65 percent of...

New York City has launched a new e-scrap collection program for multi-family residential buildings. The new program, called e-cycleNYC, allows all apartment buildings with 10 units or more to opt-in to the collection program. Building owners can use any combination of permanent storage and collection bins, room cleanouts or organized building events to collect used electronics. While New York State...

The plastics recycling industry is grappling with what to do about China's Green Fence, with some arguing it's a disaster and others saying it's the best thing to happen to domestic plastics recycling in years. Last February, China announced a 10-month enforcement campaign relating to the import of waste and recycling materials into the country. The regulations, which passed in...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday announced a large-scale change to the Big Apple's recycling program, adding mixed rigid plastics to its curbside recycling collection. In the hopes of doubling New York City's infamously low recycling rate, as well as saving on landfill costs, Mayor Bloomberg announced that all mixed rigid plastics are being added to the city's curbside...

In California, a whistle-blower lawsuit against Recology, a large waste management and recycling company, will be given a jury trial. In 2009, Brian McVeigh filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court alleging that Recology, which employed him as a supervisor in the Bay Area, illegally fired him in retaliation for complaining about other employees who were defrauding the state's...

The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), a project of sustainability non-profit organization GreenBlue, announced the successful completion of the soft launch phase of its How2Recycle recycling labeling system. The How2Recycle Label was designed to communicate the recyclability of packaging across all material types, while giving explicit directions to consumers to influence their recycling behavior and specifying when a package component is...

Houston will get $1 million from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, a competition that awards cash prizes to ideas aimed at solving urban problems, to fund its controversial project to recover and process recycling in the city. As part of its "One Bin for All" initiative, the nation's fourth largest city intends to build a large dirty materials recovery facility,...

In Texas, an environmental advocacy group has launched a campaign aimed at derailing the City of Houston's plans to secure funding for an ambitious project called "One Bin for All," which would allow residents to put all their discards in one container that will be sorted out at a new multi-million dollar facility. During the fall of last year, Houston's...

In California, a panel of judges has granted a victory to a former employee of Recology who is claiming that he was improperly fired in retaliation for calling attention to fraud at the waste and recycling company. On Jan. 31, a California appeals court partially reversed a decision by the San Francisco Superior Court to effectively dismiss a lawsuit brought...