This Week in Waste: Top Stories September 16 – September 19, 2024

#5 - Partners to Make Building Materials from Food and Beverage Cartons

The Carton Council, along with partners like Upcycling Group and Elof Hansson, plans to launch a facility in 2025 that will convert 9,000 tons of used food and beverage cartons annually into sustainable building materials, such as roof cover boards and interior wallboard. This project aims to reduce waste and carbon emissions by repurposing the fiber, polyethylene, and aluminum in cartons, while also addressing challenges like material supply and gaining wider adoption in the construction industry.

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#4 - U.S. Remanufacturing and Landfills Hit Hard by Imported Ink Cartridge Knockoffs

Printer cartridge remanufacturing, which took off with a bang in the U.S., hangs by a thread today, falling demise to Chinese knockoffs—clone OEM cartridges that have flooded the market for a decade or so. Remanufacturers that started from the ground up, eventually generating hundreds of millions a year bringing spent cartridges back to life, found it hard to impossible to compete with these cheap generic compatibles.

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#3 - Mitigating Landfill Emissions with Data-Driven Decision-Making

Landfills are, indeed, a significant source of emissions. U.S. landfills contributed about 14.4 percent of human-related methane emissions—equivalent to the emissions of about 24 million passenger cars—in 2022, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas with more than 28 times the impact of carbon dioxide, mitigating methane emissions can have important impacts.

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#2 - Maryland, Delaware Beaches Shut Down After Medical Waste Washes on Shore

Over the weekend, medical waste began washing on shore in Fenwick Island, Ocean City, Dewey Beach, the Indian River Inlet, and Assateague Island, prompting the areas to close.

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#1 - U.S. EPA Says it’s Not Obligated to Regulate PFAS-laden Sludge Applied to Land

The EPA and PEER are in a legal dispute over whether the EPA is required to regulate PFAS in sewage sludge used as fertilizer, with PEER arguing that the Clean Water Act mandates regulation of these pollutants due to potential harm. Meanwhile, Texas farmers are suing Synagro, claiming its biosolid fertilizer contaminated their land with PFAS, with both cases highlighting concerns over the widespread presence of PFAS in agricultural environments and the EPA's handling of the issue.

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