NYC Proposes Reduction in Trash Pickups
New York City officials are looking to save $12 million a year by cutting garbage pickups from twice a week to once in Queens, Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx. The reductions would take effect July 1, and residents are predicting pileups of stinking waste. The city hopes to save another $11 million by reducing recycling pickup to every other week, and $1.4 million by emptying street trashcans less often. Pickups in Manhattan will remain unchanged; officials said they chose to reduce service in less densely populated areas, prompting an outcry in the city's outer boroughs...Read More »
SSWM Expands Operations To Spain, Portugal
Sub-Surface Waste Management Inc., a subsidiary of U.S. Microbics Inc. (OTCBB: BUGS), has expanded its environmental cleanup service coverage to the countries of Spain and Portugal. The company signed a Project Teaming Agreement with NOVAterra Medioambientales S.A. to provide environmental consulting, engineering, and above/below ground surface bioremediation services at sites impacted with petroleum hydrocarbons, MTBE and other such petroleum contaminants...Read More »
Aquila Will Destroy Tire Piles Across Missouri
Aquila, Inc. (NYSE: ILA) has joined with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and community organizations to support an effort designed to fight the outbreak of West Nile virus in Kansas City, Mo. The program's objective is to rid the city of abandoned tires in vacant lots and streams, sending them to Aquila's generating station in Sibley, Mo. The Sibley station has been using Tire-Derived Fuel in its boilers for more than five years. In an average year, Aquila burns the equivalent of more than 1 million passenger car tires...Read More »
Justice Department Ends Probe Into Lockheed Hazardous Waste Allegations
Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) has announced that the U.S. Department of Justice has closed a probe into whether hazardous waste was properly stored and handled in a plant in Kentucky. A federal grand jury had been looking into operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, but the investigation was closed on March 19, 2003, Lockheed said in regulatory filings. Former employees of Martin Marietta Energy Systems and Lockheed Martin Energy Systems had testified before the grand jury, which had not issued them a subpoena...Read More »
Kelso Makes Pipe Investment In Capital Environmental
New York buyout firm Kelso & Co. has made a $53.4 million PIPE (private investment in a public entity) investment in Canadian trash services company Capital Environmental Resource Inc. to finance a landfill acquisition in Florida. Capital has completed a private placement with Kelso consisting of 55,000 shares of cumulative preferred stock and warrants for 7.15 million shares of common stock. The capital will help fund the $71 million acquisition of a 1,100-acre Florida landfill site being developed to serve Osceola County and the greater Orlando area. The landfill has a permitted capacity of 24 million tons...Read More »
Wisconsin Waste Imports Decline For The First Time In Eight Years
For the first time in eight years, the amount of garbage trucked to Wisconsin landfills from other states declined in 2002. The total tonnage of trash from other states that was dumped in Wisconsin landfills last year marks the first time since 1995 that the annual amount of out-of-state garbage did not surpass the previous year's amount and set a record high. Some state officials credit the drop to an increased state fee on all garbage disposed in Wisconsin landfills that took effect Jan. 1, 2002, growing from 30 cents to $3 per ton. But others say the lower amount of out-of-state waste may reflect the overall decline in all garbage sent to landfills last year...Read More »
Naples Blames Mafia For Italian Garbage Crisis
Italian officials have blamed the Mafia for a breakdown in garbage collection services in the southern city of Naples where residents have set fire to tons of rubbish left rotting in the streets. Mountains of refuse have accumulated in Naples and nearby towns over the last two weeks after landfills filled up and officials, residents and environmentalists squabbled over where to put temporary disposal facilities. Government and environmental leaders warned on Sunday that the crisis may have been fueled and is certainly being aggravated by the local Mafia, known as the Camorra, which allegedly backs several haulers in the area...Read More »
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