Commentary – Recycling at Risk

In recent months, the country’s solid waste companies have been engaged in what amounts to a battle of the giants. As corporations like USA Waste and Waste Management merge and gain power, small, independent waste haulers are being swallowed whole. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gayle Miller believes the frenzy in the solid waste industry spells bad news for recycling:

Commentary – Summertime Waste Reduction

With summer here, odds are you’ll be spending your free time in your back yard. Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator Bob Lilienfeld has a few ways for you to relax without putting a big strain on the environment:

Business Waste Exchange

All around the country, efforts are being made to get businesses to take each other’s waste, and turn it into usable materials. In the past four years, material exchange organizations in Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario have aggressively pursued this angle in recycling. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mieke Tonn visited one of these organizations and has this report:

Global Worming

Remember when you were a kid, how you’d spend hours sitting in the yard,poking around, looking for creepy crawly things? If one woman has herway, a lot more of us will rediscover that joy…And as adults, alsoappreciate some practical benefits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’sWendy Nelson explains:

Incinerating Chicken Waste Provides Energy

Chickens raised on U.S. poultry farms produce nearly twentymillion-tons of manure every year. That waste is difficult to disposeof and can pollute water supplies. Now one British company thinks it’sfound a profitable way to manage that manure. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Steve Frenkel has more:

Commentary – Fast Food Fiasco

Our increasingly busy lifestyles have made fast food a regular item inmost families. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator SuzanneElston points out, the food may be fast, but the legacy it leaves, iswith us for centuries:

Monitoring Radioactive Levels in the Great Lakes

A U-S/Canadian Great Lakes Commission is calling on both countries tobegin monitoring radiation levels on the Great Lakes. Fall-out fromnuclear weapons testing and nuclear power plants has lead to concernsabout its effects on people and the environment. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Commentary – Reducing Backyard Waste

With Spring upon us, the weather has allowed us to spend some time planting in the garden and cleaning up the yard. But did you know that yard waste accounts for about fifteen percent of total household trash? Great Lakes Radio Consortium Commentator Bob Lilienfeld tells us how to reduce organic waste coming from our lawns:

Superfund Remediation

The Great Lakes Region is home to thousands of inactive, abandonedhazardous waste sites. Cleaning them up is often the responsibility ofeach individual state. But the process often takes years and ishampered by a lack of funds, a lack of scientific knowledge, and a lackof political will. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell isfollowing the clean-up at one New York site. Today, the siteassessment:

New Corn Variety Lowers Agricultural Impact

Manure spills and overflow from large hog farms has become a problem for many local waterways. Those spills often contains high levels of nitrates and pesticides which can endanger fish populations and contaminate water supplies. But now, researchers have found a variety of corn that could make hog manure less harmful. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Frenkel Reports: