Thirty years after New Jersey became the first state in the nation to mandate recycling, it still has not reached the goal of throwing away no more than half the waste generated by residents and businesses.

In fact, after getting off to a good start, and achieving a 45 percent recycling rate in 1995, eight years into the new law, the percentage of recycled municipal solid waste began dropping. The rate bottomed out in 2003 at 33 percent of paper, glass, plastic, batteries, tires, motor oil, food waste, grass, leaves, and some other items generated by homes, schools, and businesses. After remaining low for years, the rate has begun creeping back up this decade, reaching a level of 43 percent in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Still, New Jersey’s recycling rate exceeds that of the nation as a whole — 41 percent of municipal waste recycled in the state in 2014, compared with 35 percent nationally that year (2015 U.S. data are not yet available).

Critics say Gov. Chris Christie’s nearly annual diversion of funds from the state’s Clean Energy Fund to plug holes in the budget is at least partly to blame for New Jersey’s inability to reach its 50 percent recycling goal.

“Christie is stealing the recycling money,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club. “That money could be used for education.”

The governor, with legislative approval, diverted $236 million from the fund — about 60 percent of its total — to subsidize other spending in last year’s budget. During Christie’s tenure, more than $1.5 billion has been diverted from the fund, which is financed by a surcharge on customers’ gas and electric bills.

Read the full story

Jason Nark reports for Philly.com

BB, a black-backed oriole, flew around, perched on branches, and ate orange slices and peanuts for several weeks in Berks County, causing a small economic boom.

One man, when he heard about the wayward bird, dropped everything and drove straight through from Nebraska.

All told, 1,824 people from 35 states, plus the United Kingdom and Canada, came to Lower Heidelberg Township, Berks County, for a few months earlier this year to catch a glimpse of the black-backed oriole from central Mexico that shouldn’t have been there. Not a few members of the species. Just one black-backed oriole. 

Most of these people stood in Tom Binder’s driveway in a sprawling development where all the streets are named after Monopoly properties.

“People really went nuts over this bird,” Binder said this week.

BB — a bird with a nickname and a Facebook page — generated $223,000, “or about $3,000 per day over 67 days,” in global spending, according to a study released last month by the University of New South Wales in Australia.

“I’ve always wondered how much money is generated by this unique and unpredictable part of birding — vagrant bird chasing — given the number of people who sometimes travel long distances to see an individual bird outside its normal range,” said Corey Callaghan, the study’s author and a Ph.D. candidate at the school.

“This was a rare opportunity to find out, and our study reveals just how much people are prepared to pay. There are dozens of similar events around the world each year.”

People booked flights, frantically, and hotels. They bought coffee at Sheetz.

The oriole arrived in a bird feeder on Indiana Avenue on Jan. 26. The owner didn’t recognize the species, took a picture, and sent it off to a friend familiar with ornithology. Soon, the word spread and the crowds came. The black-backed oriole had only been seen once before in the United States, in San Diego, but it was deemed to be an escapee.

Read the full storyAre you a ‘birder’? Have you ever traveled to see a rare bird?
What’s the farthest you’d consider going? Let us know in the
comment box below or on our Facebook pageLike this? Use form in upper right to receive free updates
See popular posts from the last 30 days in right column —
>>