When it comes to plastic bag legislation, 2017 may be the storm after the storm. After the high-profile battle over California’s statewide plastic bag ban, legislators in at least 16 states have introduced bills related to bags this year.
For years, Florida has prohibited local bans on plastic bags and EPS food-service products – or has it? A state judge recently ruled that the prohibition no longer applies and, in response, one city has passed a plastic bag ban.
California voters want a statewide ban on single-use plastics bags, and they’d like stores to keep the fees charged for paper and reusable bags, election results show.
A pair of bills in Massachusetts could have some impact on recovery. One mandates reductions in statewide per-capita waste generation and another requires state government offices to divert a host of materials.
UNICOR, also known as Federal Prison Industries, has shut down its electronics recycling facilities at several prisons across the country, leaving a sizable gap in the U.S. e-scrap recycling chain.
Hamstrung by regulatory setbacks in Pennsylvania and New York, Nulife Glass is in the midst of a major restructuring effort in order keep its cathode ray tube glass recycling business alive.
This story originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of Resource Recycling.
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The City of San Antonio began accepting plastic bags in curbside single-stream carts two years ago. In its first year, 550 tons were recovered through the program, but that number fell by more than two-thirds in the second year.
Most U.S. residents can now access a free mail-in and drop-off program from Nespresso to recycle aluminum-based coffee capsules.
An Iowa solid waste commission agreed to pay to help remove lead-containing glass and other electronic scrap from warehouses in Ohio. | mojo cp/Shutterstock
An Iowa solid waste commission recently agreed to pay nearly $240,000 to help fund the removal of materials from old TVs and computer monitors that were abandoned in Ohio.