The 11th annual E-Scrap Conference — held this week in Orlando, Florida — concluded with a debate on the pros and cons of potential national legislation on electronics recycling. Eric Harris, ISRI director of government and international affairs, argued the bill as currently written would be a burden on processors and impede the growth of the scrap recycling industry. The...

The 11th annual E-Scrap Conference — held this week in Orlando, Florida — concluded with a debate on the pros and cons of potential national legislation on electronics recycling. Eric Harris, ISRI director of government and international affairs, argued the bill as currently written would be a burden on processors and impede the growth of the scrap recycling industry. The...

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) has released its July 2013 quarterly report on its Beverage Container Recycling Fund, and the outlook is not encouraging. Echoing CalRecycle's April 2013 report, the latest numbers indicate that, without major reforms to the current bottle deposit system, the recycling fund will be insolvent by March 2015. The latest data, in...

Another sentence has been handed out in the U.K.'s largest-ever bust of illegal e-scrap exports. A British court ordered Terence Dugbo to pay roughly $141,000 in fees and penalties for his role in an effort that illegally sent scrap from the U.K. to Ghana, Nigeria and Pakistan. The U.K. Environment Agency in 2008 started a lengthy investigation into a large...

It's official: The Recycling Organizations of North America (RONA) and the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) are joining forces. Board members of the NRC unanimously approved the move late last week for RONA to dissolve and join the NRC. RONA members approved the unification earlier this month. In effect, the NRC will receive RONA's assets and incorporate RONA programming, including the...

The Coalition for American Electronics Recycling (CAER) has brought on its 100th member. New Jersey-based firm AnythingIT announced recently it had joined the business alliance, bringing membership levels at two-year-old CAER to a notable threshold as the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act legislation that helped spawn it has again been introduced in Congress. CAER formed in 2011 when a number of...

Hundreds of restaurant owners in New York City are mobilizing to try to block Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposed ban on expanded polystyrene (EPS) packaging. In June, the ban was formally submitted to New York's City Council, where it stands a chance of passing, according to some reports.  A recent press release from Restaurant Action Alliance NYC, however, states that a...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is telling New York City residents to "Recycle Everything," in an attempt to jump-start recovery rates in the Big Apple in his last year in office. With a new "Recycle Everything" ad campaign in tow, Mayor Bloomberg this week announced a number of recycling-related goals and program expansions including increasing the city's overall recycling rate and expanding...

Carton recycling is now available in 45 states nationwide, according to the Carton Council. The manufacturing trade group announced that Alabama has become the most recent state to join the growing list after the state's Dothan City municipality added cartons to its recycling program. Municipalities in 19 states have introduced carton recycling programs in the last three years, and the...

While pressure-sensitive labels can be challenging to remove from plastic bottles in the recycling stream, one company appears to have come up with a solution. The Kennedy Group's PureVue label was recognized last month by the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR) for exceeding the requirements of the group's APR’s Guidance Document for Pressure Sensitive Labels. The labels, tests have...