recycling news stories on Newser

US Battery Recycling Is Poisoning Mexico's Kids

Rob Quinn — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:29:00 CST

Recycling is becoming a very environmentally unfriendly word when it comes to industrial and automotive batteries, the New York Times finds. Close to a fifth of old American batteries now end up in Mexico, where the lead is extracted using crude methods in plants with low or nonexistent safety standards....

How to Create 1.5M Jobs: Bump Up Recycling

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:58:05 CST

Help the planet and create jobs, all at the same time? According to a new report, it might be that easy: If the US increases its recycling rate from 33% to 75% by 2030, an additional 1.5 million jobs will be created, according to the Tellus Institute. Why such...

Rome Dump Threatens Hadrian's Villa

Mary Papenfuss — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:20:00 CDT

Old Hadrian can't seem to escape the city. The 2nd-century Roman emperor built a new villa and plush outbuildings in Tivoli to escape the noises and smells of Rome. But the city is about to open a new dump next door. There goes the neighborhood. Riding to the rescue is...

Woman Suffocates in Recycling Bin

Mary Papenfuss — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 01:00:00 CDT

An Ohio woman apparently tripped and toppled head first into her recycling bin, where she suffocated. Shelia Decoster, 62, was discovered by her husband in the 65-gallon bin. "I shook her leg and called her name, and I knew she was gone," he told the Toledo Blade . She was wearing...

Garbage Cam Airs Dirty Trash Habits

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:28:20 CDT

Now on Facebook: Your garbage. Or at least, the garbage of five households who signed up for a Newcastle University program that posts photos of every item dumped in one garbage can on Facebook. Hoping to raise consciousness about recycling efforts, it uses a sensor and a camera phone to...

Rush Limbaugh: I Wasn't Mocking Japan's Refugees

John Johnson — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:38:43 CDT

Rush Limbaugh says he's no Gilbert Gottfried and that his critics are off base in accusing him of laughing at victims of Japan's earthquake . On today's show, he says he was ridiculing a Diane Sawyer news report about the refugees—not the refugees themselves—because of its focus on how...

Four Loko Recycled Into Fuel Ethanol

Nick McMaster — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:08:03 CST

With Four Loko banned in many states and being voluntarily pulled from shelves in others, there's quite a few cans of the stuff lying around in warehouses around the US. What to do with it all? Wholesalers from a number of southern states have been converting their excess stock into...

24 States Now Ban Tossing Electronics

Nick McMaster — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:04:15 CST

Nearly half the states in the US now have laws requiring that most electronic equipment be recycled instead of dumped in the trash, the AP reports. Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina are the most recent states to ban simply tossing out old TVs, computers, video game consoles, stereo...

Oil Spill Booms Resurrected as Chevy Volt Parts

Kate Schwartz — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:50:46 CST

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade—and if life gives you 100 miles' worth of oil-soaked plastic booms, make ... Chevy Volts? That's what GM is doing. The company is breathing new life into a heck of a lot of plastic that was used to help contain the Gulf spill,...