Starting this year, all municipalities in New Jersey will be able to use one online platform to communicate recycling program information to their residents. The state of New Jersey purchased access to the Recycle Coach app on behalf of all counties and other municipal government entities, the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced. New Jersey will become the first...

Tennessee's fourth-largest city has removed glass from its single-stream curbside program. The Times Free Press newspaper reports Chattanooga, Tenn. has stopped taking glass in single-stream carts but still accepts the material at five drop-off locations. The city is surveying residents asking them whether they'd participate in a service collecting glass in a separate receptacle and how much extra they'd be...

Unless you're buying seafood (and maybe not even then) fishy smelling food and drink packaging isn't going to fly. A project in Europe is working to deodorize EPS from fish boxes so they can be recycled into new food-contact products. The European Union-funded project is called Expanded PolyStyrene SUstainable REcycling (EPS SURE). It is coordinated by Cicloplast, a Spanish plastics...

In Indonesia, the road to plastic marine debris prevention may be paved with, well, plastic. A unit of Dow Chemical Co. announced its participation in a project to recycle post-consumer plastics into asphalt for use in road pavement. The goal is to boost diversion rates and reduce the generation of marine plastics, according to a press release. Indonesia, a country...

A Canadian province has received a positive reception for its electronics extended producer responsibility program, but collection volumes are trending lower than expected. Pat McCarthy, CEO of Recycle New Brunswick, recently spoke during a radio interview with CBC News about the manufacturer-run program, which began collections in late March 2017. Recycle New Brunswick is the provincial regulatory body for the...

Mexico generates the equivalent of seven pounds of scrap electronics and electrical appliances for each citizen annually, according to a recent report. The Mexican National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change estimates the country produces more than 358,000 metric tons of electronic waste each year, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. An estimated 90 percent isn't adequately "put out...

An integrated processing, consulting and testing company has launched a service to help brand owners develop recycling-friendly plastic packaging. U.K.-based Axion announced it has started providing its "Design for Recycling" service, which will help companies put food and drink packaging on store shelves that has value for reclaimers at end of life. Company staff will give advice on material choices...

Industry advocates will be pushing government leaders at the state and federal level this year to approve legislation and regulations protecting consumer device repair and reuse. Repair.org (formerly known as the Digital Right to Repair Coalition) announced "right to repair" bills have now been introduced in 15 state legislatures. The aim of the legislation is to guarantee consumers and independent...

Plastic packaging producer Berry Global has joined The Recycling Partnership, a move it sees bringing direct benefits to the company and improvements to the recycling system as a whole. Evansville, Ind.-headquartered Berry Global (formerly known as Berry Plastics) recently joined the recycling nonprofit group as a funding partner. The publicly traded company, which is an integrated plastics reclaimer and end...

This article originally appeared in the December 2017 issue of Resource Recycling. Subscribe today for access to all print content.   Together, they provide museum tours, child health and education centers, and adult financial literacy classes. Thousands of impoverished people rely on them for survival. But they’re not charities or social welfare programs – these Latin American programs are run by local...