In case you missed it: Thoughtful, newsworthy comments from industry professionals, consumers, and legislators.
"When you’re comparing state information with different definitions you're confounding your results, you’re not getting a clear picture."
— Debra Kantner, EREF's data and policy program manager for the Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF), in an interview with Waste Dive regarding a recent report. Using bottom-up methodology, EREF found approximately 9,000 facilities handled 347 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) in 2013 — as compared to the EPA’s estimate of 254 million tons.
"It's really quite safe to say that it's worse than we thought."
— The Ocean Cleanup CEO Boyan Slat during a press conference on the state of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Ocean Cleanup conducted its first-ever aerial reconnaissance mission this week over the patch and found more than 1,000 items of debris in two-and-a-half hours.
"The way you meet with the legislative body ... is you call a special council meeting, it's open to the public, the media and everybody. You let everybody see these details, be open honest and transparent ... I don't know what they ... wasted all this time for."
— Flint, MI Councilman Eric Mays to MLive regarding the ongoing dispute over the city's waste management contract. Mays, the sole council member that supports Mayor Weaver's decision to award the contract to Rizzo Environmental Services, is asking the council to hold a public meeting to discuss the trash issue and hopefully reach a conclusion.
"Dull, dirty, and dangerous was the way my former boss had described the downtown area."
— Scott Pomeroy, director of DowntownDC Business Improvement District’s sustainability initiatives, to Technically DC regarding a focus on waste management in the downtown area. BID has partnered with Maalko and Enevo to install sensors in bins across the city's Chinatown and Anacostia neighborhoods, which will allow optimization of waste pickup.
"The magnitude of the issue being expressed may not be as significant as some people are making it out to be."
— Republic Services General Manager Dave Hauser in a press statement regarding the Sunshine Canyon Landfill, as reported by Los Angeles Daily News. Republic obtained information this week that showed nearly 70% of odor complaints regarding the landfill from 2009 to 2014 came from the same 20 addresses.
"Every type of new material sooner or later becomes new waste."
— Newly-inaugurated ISWA President Antonis Mavropoulos at the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council Bi-annual Meeting on Thursday in New York. Mavropoulos discussed futuristic implications for the waste industry and the need to redefine the term "waste," and will address these idea of a "wasteless future" during a discussion in D.C. on Friday.