11 Things You Need to Know For the Waste & Recycling Industry Today (Feb. 24, 2014)

Rumpke: All mercury has been removed from landfill “Rumpke officials said all of the spilled mercury at their landfill has finally been removed. The cleanup has begun for the mercury discovered in the Rumpke landfill in June.” (WLWT.com)

Redwood City requires Sims Metal to take more than a dozen steps to prevent future fires “Redwood City announced Friday it is requiring more than a dozen safety measures from a metal recycling plant where two pollution-spewing fires broke out at the end of 2013. City Manager Bob Bell on Thursday sent a letter containing the mandates to Sims Metal Management, which runs a recycling operation on Seaport Boulevard. In December, the city required Sims to bolster overnight staffing and allow unscheduled site inspections while it evaluates the company's operations. On Nov. 10, a two-alarm fire that started in the early afternoon within a pile of large metal material burned through the night, prompting several agencies to issue shelter-in-place alerts to residents. On Dec. 17, a similar blaze broke out at about 12:50 a.m. and took firefighters nine hours to control.” (San Jose Mercury News)

Vt. Weighs 10-Cent Bag Fee for Shoppers “Vermont would require that retailers charge shoppers a 10-cent fee for disposable carryout bags in an attempt to streamline waste management and cut down on litter under a bill being debated in the Legislature, but not all businesses support the measure. State Sen. Robert Hartwell, chairman of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, introduced the bill this session and discussed details with his committee Friday.” (Associated Press)

DEP: W. Pa. hospitals violated medical waste rules “DEP spokesman John Poister says fines are likely against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Allegheny Health Network, once regulators are ‘assured that there are procedures in effect that will prevent medical waste from getting to landfills in the future.’ … Officials with UPMC and Allegheny Health stopped short of acknowledging wrongdoing, but both say they've reminded or retrained their staff about proper disposal of medical waste.” (WTAE.com)

City sanitation truck strikes, kills 25-year-old rabbinic student in Crown Heights “A rabbinical student in town to celebrate his friend’s upcoming wedding was run over by a trash truck Sunday while crossing a Brooklyn street, cops and witnesses said.The Department of Sanitation truck crushed 25-year-old Gedalia Gruntzweig when it hit him at 9:08 a.m. on Kingston Ave. at Carroll St. in Crown Heights, police and witnesses said. He died at the scene. A witness said the driver, traveling north on Kingston Ave., never saw Gruntzweig while attempting to make a right onto Carroll St.” (New York Daily News)

Leola farmer launches ag plastic recycling business “U.S. farmers use at least a billion pounds of plastic a year, according to James Garthe, a retired Penn State agricultural engineer. That turns into a lot of waste that farmers have to dispose of. Many farmers burn it or throw it in their trash containers. Recycling would seem to be a better use of resources, but stuffing a farm’s worth of plastic into a garbage hauler’s green household bin is just not going to happen. Leola vegetable farmer Daniel Zook’s decade-long quest to find a better way to deal with his ag plastic led him to start a still-growing recycling operation in 2000.” (LancasterOnline.com)

N.C. State begins new compost program, targets pizza boxes “N.C. State will soon become one of the few universities in the country to have on-campus pizza-box composting facilities available for all students to use. N.C. State Waste Reduction and Recycling implemented the Pizza Box Composting Project. The project seeks to decrease compostable waste on campus and encourages students to pay more attention to the importance of composting. University Housing alone purchased 2,588 pizzas for its programs in the 2013-2014 school year, according to Lauren McKinnis, outreach coordinator for Waste Reduction and Recycling. These boxes, plus additional boxes from other campus organizations and personal purchases, will be turned into nutrient-rich soil through composting. ” (TechnicianOnline.com)

Jefferson Parish expands recycling program to 1,200 small businesses “Jefferson Parish is expanding its recycling program, to pick up recyclable goods from small businesses throughout the parish and in the town of Jean Lafitte. From Feb. 24 through Mar. 1, green recycling bins will be distributed to approximately 1,200 businesses affected by the change, according to a news release.” (nola.com)

Chemical waste idea slammed at summit “After 45 years of public service, retired Champaign City Manager Steve Carter calls the possibility of a chemical waste storage facility above the Mahomet Aquifer an outrageous case of big money overriding common sense. ‘It involved weak statutory protection in the state of Illinois for water, several errors by the state’s protector of the environment, which is the state Environmental Protection Agency, probably open meeting violations, and corporate bullying,’ he said. About 100 people attended the McLean County Mahomet Aquifer Summit at Uptown Station on Saturday, which Carter moderated. The meeting in Normal, sponsored by the city of Bloomington and town of Normal, included presentations by several environmental supporters.” (Herald-Review.com)

Republic Recycling still working on traffic design improvements with Freetown proposal “A national recycling company has encountered some internal issues with its bid for opening a recycling facility on Ridge Hill Road near the former Boston Beer Co. property. Republic Recycling representatives have met with the Planning Board for the past several months, and the board has asked for more traffic-design improvements to take place.” (Taunton Daily Gazette)

Hammond agency considers privatizing recycling “The Hammond Board of Public Works has accepted bids from two companies to privatize recycling operations as part of the city's efforts to consolidate multiple departments under the new public works department. City Chief of Staff Mark McLaughlin said Homewood Disposal and Waste Management submitted bids to handle recycling responsibilities for the city.” (nwi.com>)