Wildlife sightings from the public are incredibly useful to New Jersey DEP Fish and Wildlife.
The division recently launched NJ Wildlife Tracker, a web application you can use from your cell phone or computer to report observations of rare wildlife species and wildlife of any kind on roadways. Your sightings of wildlife on roads will help the state’s wildlife team identify problem spots across the state – like places with frequent roadkill or at-risk species being impacted by roads. These can point us toward opportunities to build safer road-crossings for animals.
Please practice “Safety First” in every situation, especially along roadways.
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PITTSBURGH — Waste from the oil and gas industry contains toxic and radioactive substances. Disposal of this waste is supposed to be carefully tracked, but 800,000 tons of oil and gas waste from Pennsylvania oil and gas wells is unaccounted for, according to a recent study.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University initially set out to investigate whether sediment in rivers and streams near landfills accepting higher volumes of oil and gas waste contained higher levels of radioactivity. But they discovered significant problems with the records meant to track this waste.
“We set out to write a different paper,” Daniel Bain, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the authors of the study, told Environmental Health News (EHN), “but once we got into the records, we realized there was no hope of being able to meaningfully do this kind of assessment.”
The study, published in the journal Ecological Indicators, compared records on Pennsylvania’s oil and gas waste from 2010-2020, and uncovered significant gaps between what oil and gas operators reported they’d sent to landfills and what the landfills reported receiving. The records were so different that the researchers couldn’t find a single case where the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Oil & Gas Report figures on this hazardous waste matched reports from the landfills receiving it.
This type of waste often contains toxic chemicals and carcinogens, including high levels of heavy metals like arsenic, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and radioactive materials. Previous research has shown that radioactive contaminants from fracking waste can linger in local waterways and wildlife for decades.
“You assume the people regulating hazardous waste would be double-checking these records,” Bain said. “We thought they could be off by maybe 10% — we didn’t expect anything like this.”
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Chemical recycling proponents are investing in major projects to scale up the technology. Yet lingering policy and business factors will affect the trajectory of this fast-developing recycling sector.
ExxonMobil’s “advanced recycling” facility in Baytown, Texas, which started operations in 2022, is meant to process more than 80 million pounds of plastic a year. It’s one of numerous large-scale chemical recycling projects in progress in the U.S. Courtesy of ExxonMobil
Chemical recycling is at a turning point in proving its financial viability and ability to scale to meet the demands of a changing plastics recycling industry.
Years ago, many of the technologies that made chemical recycling possible were still in the developmental stage, with companies focusing on getting their work out of the lab and into the real world.
But nowcompanies such as Dow, Eastman, LyondellBasell, ExxonMobil, PureCycle, Cyclyx, and others are investing millions of dollars a year in scaling those technologies, saying the investments will speed up the process of keeping hard-to-recycle plastics out of landfills and funnel them into feedstocks for new products.
Chemical recycling, also called advanced recycling or molecular recycling by the plastics industry, is a broad term for numerous processing technologies that break down recovered plastics to the molecular level to become “building blocks” for new plastics or other products. Common techniques include pyrolysis, gasification, and depolymerization.
Companies have poured millions of dollars into expanding capabilities in recent years, and they say those investments are finally paying off as they move on from small-scale experiments and open new facilities or ink offtake agreements. Mechanical recyclers and waste companies are also getting involved. Meanwhile, recently passed laws could make it easier to open facilities in certain states.
But some environmental and health experts say chemical recycling companies aren’t able to manage the volumes of material they claim, fueling an unsustainable reliance on plastic instead of taking steps to reduce or eliminate plastic use. They also worry the facilities create harmful health impacts.
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The 3,900-member strike includes a plant in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley where Class 8 refuse trucks are assembled, including the company’s CNG and electric models.
The Mack LR Electric truck, pictured here, is among the refuse trucks affected by the strike. NY Sanitation Dept.
United Auto Workers members are now striking five plants after rejecting a tentative agreement with Mack Trucks, the union announced Sunday. One of the plants, in Lower Macungie Township,Pennsylvania, assembles all of Mack’s Class 8 heavy-duty trucks, including the Mack LR Electric.
Mack Trucks, a division of Volvo Group, offered a 19% wage increase and some healthcare, pension, and time off concessions in an agreement rejected by 73% ofunion members on Sunday. Key ongoing demands for the workers include cost of living adjustments, the abolition of a tiered retirement system, and progression to the top union wage.
About 3,900 Mack Trucks members began picketing this week, bringing the total number of struck workers to more than 30,000. The UAW has seen the number of its members on strike swell since contracts expired with Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis at the end of the day on Sept. 14.
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California’s new law for consumer electronics is among the strongest in the country, advocates say. Newsom vetoed a separate right-to-repair bill for powered wheelchairs
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Right to Repair Act on Wednesday, which requires certain consumer electronics manufacturers to make repair tools and parts widely available to device owners and third-party repair businesses. Some electronics recyclers and refurbishers see the law as a way to divert the material from disposal and bring in new business.
The law, which takes effect in July 2024, covers devices like televisions, radios, and home appliances. It also imposes fines on manufacturers that don’t comply. These measures make it one of the strongest right-to-repair laws in the country, said iFixit, a bill supporter.
Newsom vetoed a separate right-to-repair bill for powered wheelchairs this week, citing complexities with the state health care system. That bill would have prohibited the state Department of Health Care Services from requiring prior authorization for certain kinds of powered wheelchairs.
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NEW YORK (October 11, 2023) – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement with Slack Chemical Company Inc. to resolve alleged violations of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) at the company’s facilities in Carthage and Saratoga Springs, New York. The settlement includes a $231,300 civil penalty.
“EPA is working to ensure that regulated facilities comply with the “Right to Know” requirements to ensure companies properly report their storage, use, and releases of certain chemicals to federal, state, tribal, territorial and local governments,” said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia.
“These reporting requirements are important because they are used to help communities prepare for and protect against potential risks posed by potentially dangerous chemicals.”
Slack Chemical Company, Inc. is a supplier of bulk chemicals. The company stores, repackages, and distributes bulk chemicals to municipalities and industry across the Northeast from three New York facilities using a substantial delivery fleet of tractor trailers.
According to EPA, the company failed to properly submit forms required by EPA and New York State with information about how much ammonia, methanol, nitric acid, and toluene were managed at and released from the company’s facilities during 2019 and 2021.
Under the terms of the consent agreement and final order with EPA, Slack has voluntarily instituted a corporate compliance plan to prevent the recurrence of EPCRA reporting violations. For example, to improve compliance, the company will add a written procedure detailing the steps required to identify Toxic Release Inventory chemicals, calculate reportable quantities and subsequent submittal.
EPCRA increases the public’s knowledge and access to information about chemicals at certain regulated facilities which must report on the identity of their chemicals, quantities of chemical releases into the environment, and waste management activities. States and communities, working with facilities, can use the information to improve chemical safety and protect public health and the environment.
Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter now known as X and visit our Facebook page. For more information about EPA Region 2, visit our website.
For more information about EPA Region 2, visit our website.
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