Virginia Takes In Record Amount Of Waste, DEQ Finds
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality has reported that Virginia landfills accepted a record amount of trash from other states in 2001. More than 4.8 million tons of out-of-state trash made it to Virginia landfills in 2001, which is 3.2 percent more than it was in 1998. Maryland was the largest exporter, sending 1.7 million tons, and another 1.2 million tons were trucked in from New York. Virginia residents dumped 23.7 million tons of trash in their landfills. At the current rate, without considering a population increase, Virginia's landfills will fill up in 2018...Read More »
California E-Cycle Bill Falls Short In Assembly
A California bill designed to address electronics recycling has sputtered, going back to the drawing board. The bill, S.B. 1523, which targets CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors, moved forward from the California Assembly's natural resources committee but with the most important details stripped out, largely because of opposition from the high-tech industry. One of those details called for consumers to pay a fee of up to $30 when buying a CRT monitor in the state. The money would be earmarked for recycling programs. Whether the provisions remain stripped out depends on what happens between now and the bill's appearance before the Assembly's appropriations committee later this summer. The bill's author, Sen. Byron Sher, and other interested parties are likely to devise language that is more acceptable to electronics makers. Otherwise, the original language would be reinstated...Read More »
Tetra Tech Acquires Ardaman Consulting Firm
Tetra Tech, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTEK) has acquired Ardaman & Associates, Inc., a consulting and engineering firm that specializes in hydrogeology and civil engineering. Ardaman & Associates has more than 360 employees located throughout Florida, and has been providing technical services for over 40 years. Ardaman & Associates had annual gross revenue of approximately $34 million in 2001. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The company's services include consulting on complex earth sciences issues, water resources management and infrastructure design...Read More »
Sub-Surface Waste Management Wins Decontamination Contract
Sub-Surface Waste Management Inc., a subsidiary of U.S. Microbics Inc. (OTCBB: BUGS), has been awarded a $101,000 contract in South Carolina by the Department of Health and Environmental Control directly related to the state's ongoing Underground Storage Tank rehabilitation program. SSWM provides comprehensive civil and environmental engineering project management services including specialists to design, permit, build and operate environmental waste clean-up treatment systems using conventional, biological and filtration technologies...Read More »
Senate Could Soon Approve Yucca Nuclear Landfill
The U.S. Senate seems ready to give final congressional approval to President George W. Bush's decision to bury nuclear waste from across the nation in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Unofficial head counts show a majority of the Democrat-led Senate supports the proposal to put the nation's first permanent nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Approval would be a major victory for the Bush administration and the nuclear power industry, which sees the $58 billion permanent disposal site as a key to a sound energy policy. But it would be a serious defeat for the state of Nevada and environmentalists, who argue the facility, along with shipments of nuclear waste to it, would pose an unacceptable danger. The Bush administration contends $4 billion in studies over the past two decades have shown Yucca Mountain to be a safe and sound site for a nuclear waste repository...Read More »
GAO Says Firms Have Not Saved Enough For Alaska Cleanups
Oil firms have not earmarked enough money to foot a future cleanup bill of as much as $6 billion for oil drilling operations on Alaska's North Slope once the now-prolific reservoir runs dry, according to a new congressional report by the General Accounting Office. The report adds to the debate over a plan to allow drilling in the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Over the last 30 years, British Petroleum (London: BP.L), Phillips Petroleum Co. (NYSE: P) and others have collectively spent $53 billion to build gravel roads, pipelines and airstrips for oil production from the Utah-sized region known as the North Slope. Since the opening of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 1977, more than 13 billion barrels of oil have flowed from the region, accounting for about 20 percent of U.S. annual domestic production. However, once the wells end production, oil companies will face a big cleanup bill, totaling between $2.7 billion and $6 billion, the GAO said. The report did not estimate how soon the NorthSlope will play out...Read More »
Metal Management Rolls Out "Mega" Shredder In Phoenix
Metal Management, Inc., a full service scrap metal recycler, will install a new Newell Industries 120x104 "Mega" shredder at its Metal Management Arizona Facility in Phoenix, Ariz. The facility is a full service recycling facility that currently buys, processes and sells post consumer and industrial scrap including automobiles, appliances, sheet metal, steel, cast iron, aluminum, copper, brass, and other metals. The Mega Shredder is powered by a 6000 HP electric motor, and can shred up to 3 automobiles at a time, turning entire vehicles into softball size pieces in under 20 seconds. The rotor doing the shredding hits the old cars with 1000 pound hammers moving over 180 miles per hour, exerting over 1,000,000 pounds of force per square inch on to the vehicle...Read More »
Report: Americans Don't Recycle Enough Aluminum Cans
The Container Recycling Institute has released a report entitled "Trashed Cans: The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America." The report indicates that over half of the 100 billion cans sold in the United States in 2001 were not recycled, and last year's 49 percent aluminum can recycling rate was the lowest in 15 years. The report notes that 33,764 Boeing 737 jets could have been built with the 759,625 tons of aluminum wasted in 2001. Aluminum can waste last year was 28 percent more than a decade ago...Read More »
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