China trash ban is a global recycling wake up call

chinese man swimming in plastic bottlesChina’s trash import ban is giving the global recycling industry an enormous headache. The flip side: the world has finally been forced to rethink its approach to waste.

Ivana Kottasová reports for CNN Money:
Beijing has last year banned the imports of 24 varieties of solid waste, including types of plastic and unsorted paper. On Friday, it extended the ban to dozens more types of recyclable materials, including steel waste, used auto parts and old ships.
The ban has terrible consequences for some places. A town in Australia has been sending recyclable waste to a landfill because it can no longer afford to recycle it.
In the UK, hoards of low-grade plastic have been hanging around in storage, eventually heading for incineration.
The US Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries warned the ban is disrupting global supply chains and may lead manufacturers to use new materials rather than recycled ones.

But experts say the ban has been a massive wake-up call for countries like the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Japan and others who relied on China to buy and handle their trash from them. 


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‘Man the pumps’ to save Miami Beach from a rising ocean?

An anti-flooding water pump roars at full capacity at Maurice Gibb Park in Miami Beach due to the beginning of King Tide last October. (C.M. GUERRERO photo)

Alex Harris reports in The Miami Herald:

Miami Beach’s $500 million attempt to elevate and pump itself out of sea level rise’s path has drawn criticism, but an expert panel concluded Thursday that the city’s doing what it needs to survive.
The question of Miami Beach’s future, whether the community stands a chance in the face of rising seas, was an unspoken theme in every interview the panel held this week, said Mark Osler, a national practice leader in Coastal Science and Engineering with Michael Baker International.
“Our professional opinion is that the outcome is uncertain, and it is in your hands,” he said, to audible gasps from the audience. Osler said the panel believes the city has a future if the public and the government work together on solutions and don’t let up on the push to enact them.
The experts praised the city for “acting with courage” to start construction on the elevated roads and pumps that have left streets dramatically drier after floods — provided, of course, the power isn’t knocked out in a storm.
That’s not to say the island’s engineering-first, green-solutions-never approach drew perfect marks. The experts, a nine-member panel convened by the Urban Land Institute, called for a more comprehensive plan for living with water and increased transparency with the public on what’s changing and why.
The city should embrace more “green” infrastructure, they said, like parks to soak up floodwater and mangroves to lessen wave impacts on the coast, in addition to “gray” infrastructure like elevated roads and sea walls. A group of Harvard graduate students recommended a similar approach last week.
The panel also critiqued the city on water quality, a topic that wasn’t included in the panel’s scope and became a controversial issue following a Florida International University scientist’s discovery that the city’s pumps push more pollutants into the bay.

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Department of Energy Announces $39M for Innovative Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Research & Dev.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $39 million in available funding to support early stage research and development (R&D) of innovative hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. As one component of DOE’s portfolio, hydrogen and fuel cells can enable affordable and reliable energy that enhances economic growth and energy security. The work supported through this investment will address key early-stage technical challenges for fuel cells and for hydrogen fuel production, delivery, and storage related to hydrogen infrastructure.
Anticipated R&D topics include:
  • Topic 1: ElectroCat
    • Platinum group metal-free oxygen reduction electrocatalyst and electrode R&D enabling cost-competitive polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, as part of DOE’s Energy Materials Network.
  • Topic 2: H2@Scale
    • 2a) Integrated Energy Production and Hydrogen Fueling R&D -innovative component and integration R&D enabling cost competitive stations.
    • 2b) Electrolyzer Manufacturing R&D – R&D to enable manufacturing techniques to reduce electrolyzer capital costs.
    • 2c) Breakthrough Infrastructure R&D – materials and component R&D to reduce cost and station footprint.
  • Topic 3: Innovative Concepts
    • 3a) Innovative Fuel Cell Membrane R&D – non-polyfluorosulfonic acid and high temperature membrane types to address critical barriers and increase performance and durability while meeting cost targets.
    • 3b) Innovative Reversible and Liquid Fuel Cell Component R&D – innovative concepts for reversible fuel cells or direct liquid fuel cells.
Concept papers are due May 7, 2018 and full applications will be due June 12, 2018. More information, application requirements, and instructions can be found on the EERE Funding Opportunity Exchange website.
More information about DOE’s Fuel Cell Technologies Office can be found HERE.

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What do Cory’s Booker’s football years tell us about him?

Booker still keeps a football in his Senate office in Washington (DAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer)



Jonathan Tamari reports in Philly.com about Cory Booker:

On his gleaming resumé, Booker’s college football career stands out as an unusual bullet point.
Unlike at most stops in his life, the onetime Stanford class president, Rhodes scholar, Newark mayor, and political celebrity who became a senator at 44 never achieved star status as a Stanford athlete. He was relegated to the background, a role player on a talented team.
It’s a piece of his biography that has gone largely unexplored as Booker has landed on the shortlist of potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2020. With that possibility comes a new level of scrutiny on Booker’s personal history, as voters seek to understand the experiences that shaped a man who might put himself forward to lead the country.
A look at his four years on the Cardinal football team shows how someone who has enjoyed a rapid rise, whose ambitions seem boundless, and whose political critics accuse him of being more flash than substance handled frustration, disappointment, and a workmanlike grind with little personal glory.

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Murphy on VW settlement: Half for DEP, half for me

Clean-air advocates wind up with $72 million, had hoped total amount would go to fighting greenhouse-gas emissions


Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


Roughly half of the $141 million the state will receive from settlements with Volkswagen involving air-pollution violations and cheating on emissions tests will go into the general fund instead of clean-car initiatives.


The state Department of Environmental Protection told lawmakers $69 million from the auto manufacturer resulting from a settlement reached with the attorney general’s office has been directed to the state budget.


Clean-energy advocates had hoped the money, along with $72 million from a separate settlement involving the auto manufacturer and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, would go to funding a series of programs to reduce air pollution from vehicles.


But the DEP, in answering questions from the Office of Legislative Services, indicated yesterday the money from the settlement with New Jersey is being diverted to the general fund.


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Sunoco proposes changes to Mariner East 2 construction

Mariner East 2 pipe being installed in 2017 in Washington County, Pa.

Jon Hurdle reports for StateImpact:


Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public hearing on plans by Sunoco Pipeline to modify its construction of the controversial Mariner East pipelines at two sites in Chester County’s West Whiteland Township.


The DEP said Monday that Sunoco proposes to change its construction method for the pipelines from horizontal directional drilling (HDD) to a conventional bore at one site and from HDD to a combination of conventional bore, open trench and HDD at the other sit


The changes would mean “major modifications” to the company’s permits under the DEP’s Chapter 105 water obstruction and Chapter 102 erosion control regulations, and so require DEP approval after a public hearing, the department said in a statement.


The meeting will be held on April 30 from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm at the EN Peirce Middle School in West Chester. The DEP also extended a public-comment period from April 21 until May 11.


The statement said one of the affected sites is on East Swedesford Road, where the local water utility, Aqua America, has raised concerns about a well at Hillside Drive. The other location is along North Pottstown Pike, where the new work plan has been prompted by hydrogeological analysis and seismic testing, DEP said. Sunoco submitted both plans last October.


The sites are among about 60 along the cross-state pipeline route that have been subject to a court-ordered “re-evaluation” of local geology after a string of drilling-fluid spills.


Sunoco sought the change “to ensure Aqua America’s water supply would not be impacted,” spokesperson Lisa Dillinger wrote in an email. The change would allow construction to continue “in the most efficient manner possible while keeping safety as our first priority


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