City’s Bicycle and Trails Coordinator To Speak Wednesday at Sierra Club Meeting

If you would like to hear about the Mayor’s Bike and Ped program as well as current and future pedestrian/bicycling projects in Richmond and the region (including the 2015 World Cycling event), Jakob Helmboldt, AICP, Pedestrian, Bicycle and Trails Coordinator from the City’s Chief Administrative Office will be speaking at the Sierra Club Falls of the James general meeting on Wednesday evening, Sept. 12, at 7 pm at the Science Museum of Virginia (2500 West Broad Street). SCFOJ general meetings are free and open to public.

Also, speaking of the Sierra Club, the group is sponsoring a contest for Richmond Area Elementary and Secondary Schools. The goal is to foster greater recycling participation throughout the Richmond metropolitan area. First prize is $1,000! For more information, please click here.

Trash and Recycling Pickup On Thursday This Week

Because of the Labor Day holiday, the trash and recycling pickup, which normally falls on a Wednesday, shifts to Thursday morning. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup Thursday night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after Thursday night.

In recycling news, the Times Dispatch recently reported that in-state trash amounts are up, while out-of-state waste is flat. Here is a excerpt from the article:

The amount of trash shipped to Virginia from other places for disposal remained relatively flat last year after increasing in 2010 for the first time since 2006.

Virginia – the nation’s second biggest importer of trash, behind Pennsylvania – took in about 5.6 million tons of trash and debris last year, up less than 1 percent from 2010, according to a report on solid waste released by the state Department of Environmental Quality. State law requires that the 208 permitted waste facilities in Virginia compile and transmit their data to the state agency annually.

According to the report, 26 states and jurisdictions, as well as several countries, including Canada and Mexico, shipped trash to Virginia for disposal last year. A majority of the out-of-state waste came from Maryland, New York, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and North Carolina. Maryland topped the list with more than 2 million tons sent to Virginia.

Overall, the total amount of household garbage, construction and demolition debris, vegetative and other types of waste received at Virginia facilities in 2011 increased more than 5 percent to 20.7 million tons. Waste from within Virginia increased about 7 percent to 15.2 million tons.

Of the total solid waste managed in Virginia last year, nearly 75 percent of it was disposed of in landfills, about 12 percent was incinerated and the rest was managed by other methods, including mulching and recycling, the report said. Virginia plans to issue a separate report on the statewide recycling rate for 2011 later this year.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, there’s a new article in The Atlantic entitled “Inside the Surprisingly Lucrative World of Cardboard Theft”.

Excerpt:

The way it’s supposed to work is that approximately 150,000 commercial establishments in New York contract with waste-removal companies* who are licensed with the Business Integrity Commission, which among other duties is responsible for helping fight corruption in the city’s garbage-management trade after the Mafia’s intrusion in the 1990s. These authorized haulers schedule pick-up times with the businesses and whisk the waste away in professional-looking trucks.

The thieves, on the other hand, drive in trucks rented from U-Haul and Penske or even unmarked Econolines. They cruise slowly down the street manhandling bales of cardboard into the vehicles. Or they’ll dodge behind a large store like Costco to retrieve spoils left outside by the Dumpsters.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, as London prepares for the Olympics, it is also working to boost plastic bottle recycling. From RecyclingToday.com:

The campaign is being supported by London Mayor Boris Johnson, who says that around 1.4 million metric tons of post-consumer plastic in the United Kingdom is currently available for recycling.

Closed Loop says around 1.8 million metric tons of post consumer plastics are generated each year in the U.K, 580,000 metric tons of which consists of plastic bottles. Of that amount, around 300,000 metric tons of plastic bottles are land-filled each year, according to Closed Loop.

“Taking time to chuck your unwanted plastic bottles into the recycling bin, rather than your rubbish bin, is not only good for the environment, but great for our wallets too,” states Johnson in a news release.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, recycling company Newark Group VP Jonathan Gold offers views on single-stream collection and processing at a Congressional hearing.

“As an industry, we now collect two-thirds of all paper available for recycling and have increased the recycling rate for paper by 81 percent over the past 20 years,” said Gold in his testimony. “Despite this, there is still an enormous amount of paper that is not being collected and there remains quite a bit of misinformation in the data that suggests that more of what is collected for recycling is actually used in the creation of new products. That’s where the need for better information enters.”

In commenting about the practice of single-stream recycling, Gold remarked that recovered single-stream recyclables often contain materials that contaminate the usability of the paper. “The EPA does the best job they can at the moment in reporting on the tonnage of collected recyclables, but information isn’t really available to them regarding how much of that tonnage is later diverted to landfills. Better information on this could impact future decisions regarding single vs. dual stream recycling while leading to better solutions to maximize sustainability and continue the kind of economic job growth that results from new product development of recycled materials,” Gold stated.

Recycling/Trash Pickup Tomorrow

This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night. Fun recycling fact: Auto manufacturer Honda Motors Co. Ltd., Tokyo, has announced plans to start reusing the rare earth metals that can be extracted from used nickel-metal hydride batteries by the end of 2012.