News

Join this June-July 2017 series of webinars about six families or "classes" of chemicals which contain many of the harmful substances found in everyday products, brought to you by the Green Science Policy Institute. Each hour-long webcast will feature three short videos and live conversation with distinguished scientists and thought leaders.

A June 14-15, 2017 conference on Highly Fluorinated Compounds at Northeastern University addressed "issues raised by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs)" and "ubiquitous exposure in consumer products and discrete historic and recent contamination discoveries in drinking water and soil around the world." A

Nonprofit and NWPSC member Zero Waste Washington (ZWW) is working on a project to identify and reduce phthalates from outdoor products in proximity to two Superfund sites in Puget Sound. ZWW will test outdoor products (such as street paint, building caulking, fencing material, traffic cones, etc.) for phthalate concentrations and conduct outreach to businesses and agencies about alternative products that contain low/no phthalates.

On April 29, 2017, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and more than 4,200 of its law enforcement and community partners collected more unused prescription drugs than at any of the 12 previous National Prescription Drug Take Back Day events: 900,386 pounds (450 tons) at close to 5,500 sites across the nation. Since September 2010, these DEA events have altogether collected 8,103,363 pounds (4,052 tons) of prescription drugs.

The Yale University owned Journal of Industrial Ecology published a special issue – Exploring the Circular Economy: "Interest in the circular economy has grown remarkably in recent years. Viewed as a concept by some, a framework by others, the circular economy is an alternative to a traditional take-make-dispose linear economy. A circular economy aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times.

In 2016, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched the New Plastics Economy initiative to "re-think and re-design the future of plastics, starting with packaging." The New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize will award $2,000,000 in funding for "better materials, clever product designs and new, circular business models." The

California Product Stewardship Council's (CPSC) Heidi Sanborn is quoted in two June 2017 articles on the changing waste stream as more consumers shop from home and receive packages with ice packs in cardboard boxes from services such as Amazon and Blue Apron.

In a September 2016 Recycling Today article "electronics recyclers that wouldn't have looked at reuse as an option in the past now are considering it as another revenue source."

A bill in the Oregon legislature, HB 3143, would allow appliance owners of "durable household goods" (a dishwasher, refrigerator, oven, washing machine or dryer) to deduct from their personal income taxes 50% of the cost to repair those household goods, delaying their end-of-life. The bill was introduced by the Committee on Economic Development and Trade. (–via State Recycling Laws Update of March 20, 2017)

"Spain is the first European country to set a mandatory, national reuse target... at least 2% of furniture, textiles and electrical items must be redirected from both landfill and recycling to be sent for repair and resale" according to an April 2016 article in Resource Media.