Bob Wallace / WIH Reso...'s  Instablog

A leading recycling trade magazine publisher has announced it will hold the inaugural Resource Recycling Conference on October 26th and 27th, 2010 at the Marriott Hotel on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas.

The conference will be the only major conference in North America focusing solely on municipal waste recycling. The event is sponsored by Resource Recycling, Inc., the publisher of Resource Recycling, Plastics Recycling Update and E-Scrap news.

In addition, the company presents the annual Plastics Recycling Conference and the E-Scrap Conference. Both events are the largest conferences in the world in their respective fields.

Twelve major U.S. companies delivered an open letter to the U.S. Senate urging legislators to pass comprehensive climate change legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, drive investment in technological innovation and solutions, and jumpstart a clean energy economy.

In the letter, Bumble Bee Foods, Dell, DuPont, FPL Group, Google, HP, Johnson Johnson, Johnson Diversey, Levi Strauss Co., Nike, PG Corporation and Xanterra Parks and Resorts noted that they have all reformed their business practices in order to curb emissions, which has been good for the climate and business. They are urging Congress to do the same.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) president and CEO Carter Roberts also urges the Senate to pass meaningful climate legislation this year. According to the conservation organization, every region in the U.S. is experiencing significant, adverse impacts from climate change including more severe droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires. WWF believes these impacts will worsen during the course of the century if action is not taken to slow climate change.

What if we knew exactly where our trash was going and how much energy it took to make it disappear? Would it make us think twice about buying bottled water or "disposable" razors?

A team of MIT researchers today announced a major project called Trash Track, which aims to get people thinking about what they throw away. Trash Track relies on the development of special electronic tags that will track different types of waste on their journey through the disposal systems of New York and Seattle. The project will monitor the patterns and costs of urban disposal and create awareness of the impact of trash on our environment - revealing the last journey of our everyday objects.

"Trash is one of today's most pressing issues - both directly and as a reflection of our attitudes and behaviors," says Professor Carlo Ratti, head of the MIT SENSEable City lab. "Our project aims to reveal the disposal process of our everyday objects, as well as to highlight potential inefficiencies in today's recycling and sanitation systems. The project could be considered the urban equivalent of nuclear medicine - when a tracer is injected and followed through the human body.

A coalition of more than twenty waste hauling and recycling companies filed a lawsuit in federal court today seeking to declare invalid a local Solano County ballot initiative believed to be unconstitutional by coalition members and Solano County leaders.

“More than twenty years ago Solano County leaders recognized that this ordinance restricting movement of waste across county lines is illegal under federal law, and the coalition is seeking to secure a court ruling to put this issue to rest,” said Ron Mittelstaedt, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Waste Connections, Inc. “Measure E threatens the future of safe, efficient and environmentally sound management of regional municipal solid waste. The consequences for Solano County taxpayers could include an annual loss of over $3,000,000 to fund vital local services such as public safety, local road maintenance and environmental compliance,” Mittelstaedt concluded.

The coalition`s complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, challenges as unconstitutional the 1984 measure that imposed an annual cap of 95,000 tons – a small fraction of current waste volumes – on the amount of solid waste that may enter Solano County from other jurisdictions for landfill disposal. The initiative, known as “Measure E,” was approved by Solano County voters nearly twenty-five years ago in the November 6, 1984 election.

The immediate future of the Waimanalo Gulch landfill — a longtime source of contention on the Leeward Coast — is expected to be decided this week.

 

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM

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Tags: WM, wih resource group bob wallace waste management, routing expert, solid waste management solutions consulting, transportation, recycling clean energy, landfill, transfer station, wastebyrail, urs corporation, operational performance assessment, waste to energy, integ

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