LA Times (January 24)
“Thank heavens for Berkeley.” The liberal enclave “was an early adopter of curbside recycling and banned polystyrene…30 years ago, way before it was hip to do so.” And now Berkeley is becoming “the first California city to take on the challenge of crafting a truly comprehensive plan to reduce single-use plastic trash.” The waste-reduction initiative Berkeley is enacting “could serve as the test case for other cities and states.” The liberal bastion has “answered the call to think beyond bags and straws.”
Tags: Bags, Ban, Berkeley, California, Curbside recycling, Early adopter, Liberal, Polystyrene, Single-use plastic, Straws, Trash, U.S., Waste-reduction
LA Times (May 26)
“Up until just a few weeks ago, China was the single largest market for the world’s recyclables. About two-thirds of the yogurt cups, soda bottles and magazines tucked into curbside recycling bins and crushed into bales were loaded onto cargo ships bound for China…where they were remanufactured into shiny new products and shipped back to the U.S.” China precipitated a crisis, when it halted all imports of recyclables in May. “The U.S. and other nations are still scrambling to figure out what to do with the rapidly growing trash bottleneck,” but China has actually done everyone a favor by creating a sense of urgency. “Policymakers and consumers should step up and take the hard but necessary steps to deal with our out-of-control trash-generating culture.”
Tags: Bottles, China, Consumers, Crisis, Culture, Curbside recycling, Imports, Magazines, Policymakers, Recyclables, Remanufactured, Trash bottleneck, U.S., Urgency, Yogurt cups