New Jersey looking to put food waste to beneficial uses

On Inside New Jersey with host Larry Mendte, Guy Watson, president of the Association of New Jersey Recyclers (ANJR), discusses sources of wasted food in the Garden State and legislation designed to capture more of it to feed the hungry
and for new recycled uses as fuel and compost.  

To start video, click on the white arrow in the center of
photo above or click here 


Disclosure: ANJR is a client of our related company,
Brill Public Affairs. 


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Researchers find key pesticide in bees almost everywhere


Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press:

Washington — When researchers collected honey samples from around the world, they found that three-quarters of them had a common type of pesticide suspected of playing a role in the decline of bees. Even honey from the island paradise of Tahiti had the chemical.

That demonstrates how pervasive a problem the much-debated pesticide is for honeybees, said authors of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. They said it is not a health problem for people because levels were far below governments’ thresholds on what’s safe to eat.

Bee colony
What this shows is the magnitude of the contamination,” said study lead author Edward Mitchell, a biology professor at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, adding that there are “relatively few places where we did not find any.”

Over the past few years, several studies — in the lab and the field — link insecticides called neonicotinoids, or neonics, to reduced and weakened honeybee hives, although pesticide makers dispute those studies. Neonics work by attacking an insect’s central nervous system;

Bees and other pollinators have been on the decline for more than a decade and experts blame a combination of factors: neonics, parasites, disease, climate change and lack of a diverse food supply. Honeybees don’t just make honey; about one-third of the human diet comes from plants that are pollinated by the insects. Bees pick up the pesticide when they feed on fields grown from treated seeds.

As part of a citizen science project, the Swiss researchers asked other experts, friends and relatives to ship them honey samples. More than 300 samples arrived and researchers tested 198 of them for five of the most common types of neonics.

Overall, 75 percent of the samples had at least one neonic, 45 percent had two or more and 10 percent had four or more.

Results varied by region. In North America, 86 percent of samples had the pesticide; Asia, 80 percent; Europe, where there’s a partial ban, 79 percent; Africa 73 percent; the Australian region, 71 percent and South America, 57 percent.



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Journalists take another hit at Philly Inquirer, Daily News

Bob Fernandez reports for Philly.com


Philadelphia Media Network, owner of the Inquirer, the Daily News, and Philly.com, is seeking to eliminate 30 to 35 newsroom positions through buyouts and warned that it could lay off employees if it fails to reach that target.

At the same time, the company is hiring 10 employees with digital-related skills, such as a newsletter editor and search optimization editor, and said it would continue to hire in specific areas to modernize the newsroom and expand its audience on Philly.com.

“The economics are not getting any better,” said PMN publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger, but he noted that PMN is not just cutting costs.

“We’ve already decided to invest in growth areas like online subscriptions, events, a new content-management system, digital, and the overall marketing,” Egger said. “We are now going through a similar phase in the newsroom to invest in key areas of coverage, storytelling, and our ability to reach broader new audiences.”

Inquirer and Daily News print advertising has declined faster than it can be replaced with newer sources of revenue such as digital advertising, which the company says requires it to cut costs.

But PMN is also encouraged by some early investments. The company last month began charging readers who click on more than 10 stories for further access to Philly.com, and those online subscriptions are “off to a good start,” Egger said.

Employees who lack digital skills or are uncomfortable with the newsroom changes can “self-select” their departure, he added. Egger credited top newsroom executives for crafting a buyout offer that was considerate to employees.

The cutback and expected hirings were disclosed in an email to the newsroom around noon Monday, and represent a net reduction of about 10 percent in the 210-member union-covered staff, according to company data.

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Move over Jersey peaches, make room for Korean pears

Farm owner Chong Kim brought his father’s Korean Shingo pears to New Jersey to share memories of home with others. 140 acres later, the fruit is not only big in size but a big hit with buyers.


The website Shockingly Delicious says: “The beauty of Korean pears is they are superbly crisp, juicy and sweet with the thinnest skin (no need for peeling). They’re good in any salad where you might use chopped apples, or simply sliced and eaten for a snack or dessert.”


NJTV New correspondent Leah Mishkin paid a rain-soaked visit to the Hamilton Township farm to bring us the story. Hopefully, she left with a few samples.


Have you tried a Korean pear?  What did you think? Let us know in the comment box below.

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Philly refiners urge Trump to protect their industry

                                                                Ron Tarver – Monroe Energy in Trainer.

Andrew Maykuth reports for Philly.com


Several hundred refinery workers rallied Monday to urge President Trump to fix the Renewable Fuel Standard, saying the federal ethanol-blending rule is creating an unfair and onerous burden for the region’s independent refiners.

In a driving rainstorm that became a metaphor for the storm embattled refiners face in Washington, a bipartisan lineup of politicians and labor and business leaders called upon workers to pressure Trump to reconfigure the market for ethanol fuel credits, which they say has been hijacked by big oil interests and “Wall Street sharpies.”

“The people gathered today represent the manufacturing jobs that President Trump and Congress talk so much about preserving,” said Jeff Warmann, chief executive of Monroe Energy, which is owned by Delta Air Lines. “These are good jobs.”

“This is manufacturing,” said U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan (R., Pa.). “You don’t have to bring it back. It’s here today. We just have to keep it.”

The rally was organized by the Fueling American Jobs Coalition headed by the refiners, which has been fighting an uphill battle in Washington to rework the Renewable Fuel Standard. The RFS requires blending biofuel, principally ethanol, into motor fuels.

The coalition is trying to redefine its message so that it does not appear opposed to the RFS, which has strong legislative support in farming states, where most of the corn ethanol is produced. Rather, they want the administration to reconfigure who is responsible for shouldering the cost of biofuel credits called RINs, or Renewable Identification Numbers.

“This is not a fight against biofuels,” said Warmann, who said Monroe Energy spends $500,000 a day for RINs, or more money per year than the $150 million Delta Air Lines spent in 2012 to buy the refinery.


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EPA’s Pruitt to repeal Obama’s signature climate policy

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (Al Drago photo for the NY Times)

Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer report for the NY Times:

The Trump administration announced Monday that it would take formal steps to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, setting up a bitter fight over the future of America’s efforts to tackle global warming.

At an event in eastern Kentucky, Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that his predecessors had departed from regulatory norms in crafting the Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in 2015 and would have pushed states to move away from coal in favor of sources of electricity that produce fewer carbon emissions.

“The war on coal is over,” Mr. Pruitt said. “Tomorrow in Washington, D.C., I will be signing a proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan. No better place to make that announcement than Hazard, Kentucky.”

The repeal proposal, which will be filed in the Federal Register on Tuesday, fulfills a promise President Trump made to eradicate his predecessor’s environmental legacy. Eliminating the Clean Power Plan makes it less likely the United States can fulfill its promise as part of the Paris climate agreement to ratchet down emissions that are warming the planet and contributing to heat waves and sea-level rise. Mr. Trump has vowed to abandon that international accord.

In announcing the repeal, Mr. Pruitt made many of the same arguments that he had made for years to Congress and in lawsuits: that the Obama administration exceeded its legal authority in an effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. (Last year, the Supreme Court blocked the rule from taking effect while courts assessed those lawsuits.) A leaked draft of the repeal proposal asserts that the country would save $33 billion by not complying with the regulation and rejects the health benefits the Obama administration had calculated from the original rule.


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