New York City to Require Food Waste Recycling
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg aims to green the Big Apple by expanding food waste recycling efforts following a surprisingly successful test program in 3,500 Staten Island homes and some Manhattan apartment buildings. Bloomberg, perhaps taking a page from other cities including San Francisco and Seattle that have adopted rules that mandate recycling of food waste from homes, wants to expand his city's food waste program to 100,000 homes and 100 high-rise apartments in all five boroughs by this fall. That is about 5 percent of all households in the city. Initially, the city would employ a composting plant to process 100,000 tons of food wastes per year, which is about 10 percent of the city's residential food waste. Later the city will seek proposals from firms to construct a plant that would convert food waste to biogas which could be burned to generate electricity...Read More »
Los Angeles to Ban Plastic Grocery Bags
The City of Los Angeles has become the largest city in the country to ban the use of plastic grocery bags. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is expected to sign the measure which would phase-out single-use plastic grocery bags at large grocery stores beginning on Jan. 1 next year. The ban would extend to smaller stores by the following July...Read More »
Waste-to-Energy Project in Puerto Rico Gets EPA Approval
The US EPA has approved a key air permit for a 77 megawatt waste-to-energy plant in Puerto Rico, making it the first of its kind and the largest recycling facility in the territory if approved. The permit was awarded to New York-based Energy Answers International which has budgeted $650 million to build the plant which will process 2,100 tons of waste per day. It will be built over a period of 3 years at the site of the former Global Fibers Paper Mill in the northern coastal town of Arecibo.
EPA's approval recognizes that Puerto Rico may have a looming waste disposal crisis...Read More »
Advanced Disposal to Sell Some NJ, NY Assets by Late Summer
Advanced Disposal Services, Inc. (Ponte Vedra, FL) said it hopes to complete the sale of certain waste operations in New Jersey and New York by late summer. That sale represents a strategic withdrawal from those particular markets and is separate from its agreement to divest certain assets in New Jersey and Georgia required for U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) approval of its $1.9 billion acquisition of Veolia last year. Consequently, the company will have to find at least two separate buyers for both groups of assets since it was antitrust issues that were the basis DOJ's original concern. The company has not yet identified potential buyers...Read More »
Huizenga and Others Sued over Choice Environmental Deal
The former owners of Choice Environmental Services are suing H. Wayne Huizenga and two other officers of Swisher Hygiene Inc. (Charlotte, NC) which bought the company in March 2011 for $90 million, including about $41 million of debt. The sellers, Glen Miller and Neal Rodrigue, were paid $50 million in Swisher stock and $5.7 million in cash for their company. They now allege in a suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that then chairman Huizenga, CEO Steven Berrard, and SVP and CFO Michael Kipp failed to "timely deliver" shares of Swisher stock suitable for public resale. In November 2012 Swisher sold Choice Environmental to Progressive Waste Solutions Ltd. (Toronto. ON) for $123 million "of which Miller and Rodrigue received no portion of those unjust rewards," according to a press release issued by their attorneys Shutts & Bowen LLP. They claim that the lawsuit "lays out a detailed story of corporate mismanagement, intrigue foundedin alleged deception, misrepresentations, as well as intentional and negligent acts and omissions - committed by Swisher while Huizenga and Berrard were running the company."...Read More »
EPA Approves Alternative CRT Recycling to Combat Stockpiling
In response to the illegal stockpiling of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) from old televisions and computer monitors, the EPA has approved a new method to recycle material that would exempt it from hazardous waste regulations if it is used in copper smelting. EPA considers this approach to be part of the "use/reuse" exclusion under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The agency endorsed the copper smelting option in an April 24 letter and a May 31 webinar for state waste regulators and recyclers concerned about limited recycling options. Regulators have been worried about facilities that move material to other sites in a "shell game" to avoid regulations.
The glass in an average CRT contains about four pounds of lead, enough to require managing it as "hazardous waste" under certain circumstances. But the material is excluded from hazardous waste regulations if it is recycled properly, primarily by a lead smelter or a company making new CRTs. But the dwindling demand for CRTs in the wake of flat screen technology has created a conundrum for recyclers since it no longer has value...Read More »
Macquarie Fund Invests in Korean Waste Firm
The Australian investment bank Macquarie Group, through its subsidiary Macquarie Korea Opportunity Fund II, has invested $44 million for an 80 percent stake in Korean waste-treatment company Daegil Industrial. Daegil contracts with governments and corporations to collect and process wastes from building sites.
Macquarie has made forays into the waste-management space before. In 2011, its North American-focused fund Macquarie Infrastructure Partners II took WCA Waste Corp. (Houston, TX) private in a $526 million transaction. The bank also helped Waste Industries USA, Inc. (Raleigh, NC) go private in May 2008 in a deal then valued at $544 million...Read More »
CRRA to Invest $12 Million in Solar Array Atop Closed Hartford Landfill
The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority is investing $11.6 million to install a six-acre solar panel array on a section of its now closed Hartford landfill. It coincides with plans to cap the remaining 35-acre section of the landfill. Elsewhere in the country, there are more than 70 similar projects on contaminated sites, former landfills or mined areas that create a combined 216 megawatts of clean energy, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Power from the 1 megawatt project in Hartford will receive an 11-cent per kilowatt hour subsidy from Connecticut Light & Power's Zero Emissions Renewable Energy Credit program which is a clean energy effort mandated by the state...Read More »
SWANA Supports South Carolina County Flow Control Law
The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) supports a South Carolina county's flow control ordinance. The Horry County Solid Waste Authority passed a law in 2009 that directed all waste generated in the county to its own landfill in Conway, SC or one designated by the authority. Two waste companies, Sandlands C&D LLC and its sister company Express Disposal Service LLC subsequently sued to overturn the law. That case is now pending in U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit where SWANA has filed an filed an Amicus brief in support of the law and flow control as a means to "effectively to implement integrated municipal waste management programs," said Anne Germain, SWANA International President. "That's why SWANA supports cities, counties and waste authorities that have crafted and implemented waste facility designation programs that balance specific and unique local objectives with the legitimate interests of residents, businesses and other affected parties."...Read More »
Covanta and Clean Energy Open First CNG Fueling Station under Partnership
Covanta Energy Corp. (Morristown, NJ) has opened its first compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station, built as part of a long-term partnership with Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (Seal Beach, CA), at the site of its energy-from-waste facility in Newark, NJ. Both companies are seeking to encourage as well as to take advantage of the eventual conversion of waste collection vehicles to cleaner-burning CNG. Covanta currently operates 44 energy-from-waste facilities, which collectively produce 9 million MWh of electricity annually...Read More »
Recology Elects New Chairman to its Board
Recology (San Francisco, CA) has named Dennis Wu, an internationally recognized business leader and accountant, as chairman of its Board of Directors. Mr. Wu is the managing partner and co-founder of WuHoover & Co., an accounting firm, and has been on the Recology board for the last five years. He founded WuHoover after a 37-year career at Deloitte & Touche where he served as partner-in-charge of Deloitte's Enterprise Group in Northern California, managing partner of the San Francisco Emerging and Midsize Business Group, national managing partner for its Southeast Asia Desk Program, and national managing partner for its Greater China Desk Program...Read More »
Waste Connections Opens New Hauling Facility in Houston
Waste Connections Inc. (The Woodlands, TX) has opened a new multimillion-dollar hauling facility in Houston, TX. The 7-acre facility, that also includes 11,300 square feet of office space, will improve hauling efficiencies throughout the area. It compliments three other company facilities in Houston - two in north Houston and one in Angleton...Read More »
Waste Management to Report 2nd Quarter Results on July 30
Waste Management, Inc. (Houston, TX) plans to report its second quarter financial results before the opening of the market on Tuesday, July 30. The company will then host a conference call to discuss those results later that morning at 10 a.m. (Eastern)...Read More »
Republic Services to Report 2nd Quarter Results on July 25
Republic Services, Inc. (Phoenix, AZ) plans to release its second quarter financial results on Thursday, July 25 at about 4 p.m. The company will then host a conference call at 5 p.m. to discuss those results...Read More »
Casella to Report Fiscal 4th Quarter Results on June 26
Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (Rutland, VT) plans to report its fiscal fourth quarter financial results after the close of the market on Wednesday, June 26. The company will host a conference call to discuss those results the following day at 10 a.m. (Eastern)...Read More »
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