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:

PCB Contamination Through Sewer Overflow

Despite a 1970’s ban, PCBs have remained a problem throughoutthe Great Lakes Region. Now residents in one Detroit neighborhood aresuing the city over PCB exposure. Families on one street say theirhouses have been contaminated with PCB’s from city sewer lines. TheGreat Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn reports:

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:

Low-Flush Toilets Make a Splash

It’s one of the most private, intimate parts of our lives — in fact, most people talk more readily about sex than they do about what goes on in the bathroom. But now, toilet talk is heating up over a federal mandate requiring all new toilets to flush with no more than one-point-six gallons of water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson has the story:

Commentary – Disposable Pride

Modern inventions are designed to make our lives easier. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston points out, sometimes easier isn’t always better: