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It might just be a bunch of bottles and cans, but when you get enough recyclables together it can mean a hefty wad of cash. California authorities say a group involved in an alleged illegal recycling scheme was flush with $14 million in refunds after trucking roughly 250 million cans and bottles from out of state and redeeming them. A grand jury indicted five California residents on charges including grand theft and recycling fraud in March, reports the Associated Press, but the details of the case were just announced Thursday by California’s Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, or CalRecycle.

Today is Earth Day. The National Security Agency is celebrating by trying to help kids in Maryland schools up their recycling game. How do they plan to get kids to care about recycling? The agency has decided to go with filling the kids with terror, by enlisting the help of a new environmental mascot. Meet Dunk, the anthropomorphized recycling bin. And since he works at the NSA, you know he's been watching you. What is it about this recycling bin that is so universally horrifying? (The Huffington Post, USA Today, Gizmodo, and other news outlets have all noted that Dunk's...

In Seattle, wasting food will now earn you a scarlet letter — well, a scarlet tag, to be more accurate. The bright red tag, posted on a garbage bin, tells everyone who sees it that you've violated a new city law that makes it illegal to put food into trash cans. "I'm sure neighbors are going to see these on their other neighbors' cans," says Rodney Watkins, a lead driver for Recology CleanScapes, a waste contractor for the city. He's on the front lines of enforcing these rules. Seattle is the first city in the nation to fine homeowners for...

Recycled whisky waste has £140m potential • The Scotch whisky industry could generate £140 million through recycling whisky wastes into fish feed for Scotland’s fish farming industry and help build a more circular economy. The possibility was highlighted in the Circular Economy Scotland report, which examines how the certain sectors such as oil and gas and the food industry can use their strengths to generate millions of pounds worth of value from materials used in these areas. It suggested the whisky industry could continue to capture heat and electricity from whisky wastes, but biorefining wastes could produce two more products...

Update: Yahoo! Email Recycling October 7, 2013 Allison here. We’ve recently discussed the June 2013 Yahoo! announcement indicating that the company would be recycling old email addresses, allowing users to pick them up if they wanted something simpler i.e. janedoe instead of janedoe34732. This program launched within the past several weeks, and a few users have received emails intended for the previous owner, and these emails emails contain personally identifiable information that put these previous owners at risk for identity theft. However, when Yahoo! first announced this program, they reassured users that it would not compromise their personal information or lead to...

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tried to curb soda consumption, ban smoking in parks and encourage bike riding, is taking on a new cause: requiring New Yorkers to separate their food scraps for composting.

VATICAN CITY, June 6 (UPI) -- At his weekly address in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis attacked the "culture of waste" and said wasting food is like stealing from the poor. "Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, to which, at times we are no longer able to give a just value," the pope said. "Throwing away food is like stealing from the table of the poor and the hungry." The pope dedicated his audience, which attracted thousands of pilgrims from around the world, to the U.N. World Environment...

Oakland — The “Use Reusables” campaign, led by public agency Stopwaste.Org, has awarded $79,500 in grant funding to help six businesses replace limited-life transport packaging materials with durable, reusable alternatives, on a pilot project basis. The grantees are non-profit MedShare (San Leandro, CA), Tesla Motors (Fremont, CA), Veritable Vegetable (San Francisco, CA), America’s Best Coffee Roasting Company (Oakland, CA), Straus Family Creamery (Petaluma, CA) and Shin Shin Foods (Portland, OR)............ .......Tesla Motors is eliminating corrugated cardboard and plastic foam packaging used for glass components of the Model S sedan and replacing them with custom reusable glass racks. Veritable Vegetable and...

Just over 8.5 billion recyclable cans were sold in California last year. The number redeemed for a nickel under California's recycling law: 8.3 billion. That's a return rate of nearly 100%. That kind of success isn't just impressive, it's unbelievable. But the recycling rate for certain plastic containers was even higher: 104%. California's generous recycling redemption program has led to rampant fraud. Crafty entrepreneurs are driving semi-trailers full of cans from Nevada or Arizona, which don't have deposit laws, across the border and transforming their cargo into truckfuls of nickels. In addition, recyclers inside the state are claiming redemptions for...

Linguistic analysis of a White House petition against increased coal-ash regulations — submitted by coal industry front group “Citizens for Recycling First” in late 2011 – revealed that hundreds of Chinese signatures from Colorado on the petition that are less than authentic. The most basic of the fake names appear to be generated by software or small group of individuals that only changes simple things in the names — names like Fred Smith, Larry Smith, Larry Williams, George Jones, William Jones, James Jones, Henry Jones, Peter Jones. Other names are more inane, inanimate objects. These names are not traditional Chinese...

Linguistic analysis of a White House petition against increased coal-ash regulations — submitted by coal industry front group “Citizens for Recycling First” in late 2011 – revealed that hundreds of Chinese signatures from Colorado on the petition that are less than authentic. The most basic of the fake names appear to be generated by software or small group of individuals that only changes simple things in the names — names like Fred Smith, Larry Smith, Larry Williams, George Jones, William Jones, James Jones, Henry Jones, Peter Jones. Other names are more inane, inanimate objects. These names are not traditional Chinese...

~snip~ Since May, several dozen catalytic converters have been stolen from vehicles in the Milwaukee area by thieves who have targeted the equipment for its scrap metal value. Converters contain platinum, or palladium, and rhodium. There's only a fraction of an ounce of platinum in them, but once processed, the metal is worth about $1,450 an ounce. Thieves get from $50 to $200 for a converter when they sell it to a metal recycler. Some of the thefts have occurred in the daytime, while vehicles were parked at restaurants and hotels. Other thefts have occurred at night - sometimes on...

Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling “the perfect pathogens.” The incident is raising questions, once again, about the cleanliness of the portable shopping bags that many consumers use to avoid the paper vs. plastic impact on the environment. “We wash our clothes when they’re dirty; we should wash our bags, too,” said Kimberly K. Repp, an epidemiologist with the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services in Hillsboro, Ore. Her work is...

Southeast Asia is closer to the equator than the North Pole, but an electronics store in Vietnam is ringing in the holidays with a 15-foot Christmas tree made from more than 2500 unusable cellular phones. Nguyen Trai, a store manager at Westcom Electronics in the southern city of My Tho, says 10 workers spent two weeks building the cellular Christmas tree that he hopes will raise awareness about hazardous waste and promote environmental responsibility.

Vt. governor to sign mercury lamp recycling billMay 19, 2011 MONTPELIER, Vt.—Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin is going to signed a bill calling on manufacturers of light bulbs containing mercury to set up and pay for a recycling program for the bulbs. When Shumlin signs the bill Thursday, Vermont will become the third state in the country -- behind Maine and Washington -- to pass what's called a producer responsibility law for mercury-containing products. Lamps containing mercury, including compact fluorescent bulbs, are praised for saving energy. But mercury is a known nerve poison and is a cause of concern when released...

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — There is now a shocking new strategy to fight copper crime. Street lights are now staying on 24-hours a day in one Sacramento neighborhood and the city is banking on live wires to keep criminals away. The city now figures keeping them turned on will save money, by warding off copper thieves; keeping the lights on mean live wires, and the unlucky thief who doesn’t know better could be electrocuted. It’s quite a warning, from a city that’s been hit hard by the copper crime.

I'm not sure I'd want to do this in the living room yet but it's an interesting discovery.We may need it after Obama is finished with our economy.

The research found that in Newcastle-under-Lyme, residents are asked to sort their waste into nine different bins and bags. A further 20 councils provide seven bins for food waste, different recycling streams and other rubbish. More than 100 town halls ask residents to sort rubbish into 5 or more bins. Residents in these areas say it is impossible to find room in the house for all the different bins and complain that the system is “too complicated and complex”. [snip] In Newcastle-under-Lyme Council, north Staffordshire, residents are asked to dump food waste in a silver slop bucket for food waste,...

St. Louis was chosen this year to hold one of three major regional rallies on Sunday, September 12th. Sacramento and Washington DC will also hold rallies that day. The rally will be held under the Gateway Arch with speakers and music on the Riverfront Stage. Music will begin at noon; speakers to begin at 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. KFTK 97.1 FM Talk serves as the official radio sponsor. “Our theme this year is ‘Recycle Government’ – to repeal ObamaCare, reduce government spending, and restore the principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free...

Berkeley wants to start charging households and businesses a recycling fee, a move that would end an era in which the city, yearning to encourage recycling, charged only for garbage. With less trash going into the garbage can, people are shifting to smaller can sizes. That is putting less money in city coffers - even after a 20 percent garbage rate increase last year. But the recycling and composting services once billed as free continue to grow. "Our (garbage) fee is oversimplified and idealistic," said David Tam, a Berkeley resident and a longtime recycling and reuse activist. "It just needs...