This Week in Waste: Top Stories Jan. 2-4, 2024

#5 - Farm and Compost Machine Manufacturer Partner to Expand Residential Food Scrap Collections

Mill is expanding residential compost collections, offering subscription services nationwide since January 2023. USPS picks up most of the compost food scraps, but now Mill is teaming with a farm on a new delivery model to bring more residents into the fold in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area.

Read the full article here.

#4 - January Fire Report: Do We Finally Have a Handle on the Lithium-ion Battery Problem?

Based on the waste and recycling industry's track record, Ryan Fogelman says we will see a turn in reported fires at some point. Hopefully, 2023, with fewer fires than 2022, is the watershed year where the industry finally starts seeing a trend of decreasing fires in 2024 and beyond.

Read the full article here.

#3 - Biomass to Energy: How One Agriculture Waste Solution is Generating Renewable Power

Creating commodities from agricultural waste has its environmental advantages, with the plants themselves delivering these gains during their lifetime. They sequester enormous volumes of climate-warming carbon through photosynthesis. But when they die, they release the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.

Read the full article here.

#2 - Industry Players Take Aluminum Can Recovery Technology for Test Drive

Caglia Environmental has implemented AI, thanks to funding from the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI). This is part of CMI's strategic goal to recover more of the approximately one in four used beverage cans (UBC) that are missorted at a typical MRF.

Read the full article here.

#1 - New York State Sues PepsiCo Claiming its Plastic Pollution Endangers Public Health

The civil lawsuit brought to the Supreme Court of New York’s Erie County charges that PepsiCo, which reportedly produced 2,600,000 tons of plastic packaging in 2022, “has misled the public about its efforts to combat plastic pollution while increasing production of single-use plastic packaging” and, in doing so, contributes to a “public nuisance that injures the community.”

Read the full article here.