Canada has been in the news a lot lately in regards to recycling electronic waste. There have been questions from places other than Toronto, however. The City of Ottawa has been addressing issues of another sort, such as where a resident can dispose of old tires, paint cans, and car batteries. While many facilities are equipped to accept simple recycling jobs, not many can handle the big or unusual requests. The City of Ottawa has addressed that problem with the Take It Back! Programme. The scheme includes 540 partners who will "take back" over 100 products - including everything from planting ... Full Story

OSS Group has opened a new hazardous waste fragmentation plant its site in Mersyside. The new plant has the ability to process all types of used fuel, oil and air filters along with metal and plastic waste including used containers up to 240 litres. These items are shredded and divided into groups of basic elements: paper, metal, plastics, and residual waste oils. The oil that will be recovered will be repurposed and used as a feedstock for its fuel oil product, CFO®. The rest of the various solid wastes will be cleaned until safe, packaged and sent off to various re-processors. ... Full Story

Albion Distillation Services (ADS), a chemical distillation and solvent recovery company based in Garston, has been purchased by Veolia Environmental Services. The acquisition will permit Veolia to provide "a wider range of solvent recovery options to its clients". ADS was previously a division of Albion Chemicals, a chemical distributor which is subsidiary of Brenntag, a global firm. In December 2006, Albion Distillation reported a profit of £282,000 on a turnover of £2.9m. Albion Distillation currently employs 23 people and provides various services including toll recycling services. Toll recycling is the process of purifying waste solvents and then returning them to the ... Full Story

A company in South Yorkshire recently launched a new recycling service for businesses, claiming to be able to efficiently recycle almost all of the waste it collects, including electronics and electrical items, for free. Barnsley-based SR Recycling has been in the business for over 35 years and aims to recycle 99 per cent of the waste it collects. The company was inspired by Japanese recycling techniques which use disassembly lines in order to separate waste. In the UK, a process called granulation occurs which makes it difficult and expensive to recover waste. According to SR Recycling, many of the chemical and metals used ... Full Story

Recycling has become increasingly popular in recent years with intrepid individuals finding ways to reuse almost everything but the city of Los Angeles wins first prize for their environmental zeal with their a new proposal to recycle the city’s sewage. The proposal was generated by a growing need for fresh water supplies and a dwindling supply. The city has been affected by a persistent drought which has left it with less drinking water than it needs. Nor is Los Angeles alone. Many other cities in America are facing a similar situation and wondering what to do about water. Ten years ago, Mayor, ... Full Story

A new group known as Freeconomy Wrexham has been formed in Wrexham with the aim of bringing communities together in order to save them money and reduce the amount of discarded items being sent to landfill sites. The mission of Freeconomy Wrexham is to organise ‘bring and take’ events in communities all over Wrexham on a monthly basis in which members of the public can take their unwanted household goods like personal computers, furniture and clothing so that others who might have a use for them can take them away at no cost. James Whelan of Freeconomy Wrexham likened the concept to ... Full Story

Before Boulder residents start recycling organics, elected officials will have to sort through a few tough issues.  Some of the issues include whether to get rid of the popular city-sponsored yard cleanup programs, and whether leaving out food scraps could be too tempting for bears and other wildlife. During a brainstorming session Tuesday night, the Boulder City Council gave the nod to the city staff to bring forward a "curbside organics" program, which would allow trash haulers to pick up food waste, yard waste and other material to be composted. The opportunity to pick up that material will start in early summer. ... Full Story

Many households in Scotland throws away food every week.  According to the UK government's Love Food Hate Waste campaign, Scots chuck out 650,000 tonnes of food - worth around £800m - every year. It amounts to about one-third of all food that Scots buy. And around half of the food tossed away is still edible when it is thrown away. In April, East Renfrewshire council will be the first local authority in Scotland to launch a dedicated kerbside collections of food waste. The goal will serve two aims - firstly, to divert this waste from landfill; and secondly, to make people ... Full Story

In Maine, an industry-funded non-profit, Thermostat Recycling Corporation (TRC), will pay residents $5 to return and recycle their old mercury thermostats.  There is a new Maine law in effect that these items cannot be disposed of in household trash. Thermostats manufacturers will be providing pre-paid UPS mailing labels to any resident who requests them. Mark Kohorst, executive director of TRC, commented, "It is now not only environmentally responsible, but profitable for Maine residents to avoid throwing old thermostats in the trash. Homeowners can obtain mailing labels from us either by phone or email and we encourage them to do so." Homeowners can get a mailing label ... Full Story

Manufacturers and retailers of consumer, industrial and automotive batteries will have to adhere to strict new rules regarding the design, recycling and disposal of battery technologies. The new rules, first made public last month in a government consultation document, will be introduced into the UK by September 26, 2008.  This will bring the UK into compliance with the European Union’s Batteries and Accumulators Directive. The proposed legislation will set as its initial target 25 percent of all waste household batteries for recycling by 2012.  That number will rise to 45 percent by 2016.  There are also a number of regulations specifically aimed ... Full Story