When I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time poking around the back roads up here, taking in the vistas, the hills, the mountains and the farms. I’ve always liked the rural country with all its beauty, always been more than a little jealous of the folks that live out here. It really is God’s Country.
Many plastic items that Americans put in their recycling bins aren’t being recycled at all, according to a major new survey of hundreds of recycling facilities across the US.
The research, conducted by Greenpeace and released on Tuesday, found that out of 367 recycling recovery facilities surveyed none could process coffee pods, fewer than 15% accepted plastic clamshells – such as those used to package fruit, salad or baked goods – and only a tiny percentage took plates, cups, bags and trays.
The findings confirm the results of a Guardian investigation last year, which revealed that numerous types of plastics are being sent straight to landfill in the wake of China’s crackdown on US recycling exports. Greenpeace’s findings also suggest that numerous products labeled as recyclable in fact have virtually no market as new products. Recycling isn’t working – here are 15 ways to shrink your plastic footprint Read more
While the report found there is still a strong recycling market for bottles and jugs labeled #1 or #2, such as plastic water bottles and milk containers, the pipeline has bottomed out for many plastics labelled #3-7, which fall into a category dubbed “mixed plastics”. While often marketed by brands as recyclable, these plastics are hard for recyclers to repurpose and are often landfilled, causing confusion for consumers.
President Trump has commuted the sentence of the ex-governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, who has been imprisoned since being convicted on corruption charges over his attempt to sell the Senate seat vacated by then-President Barack Obama.
On Tuesday, the White House announced that Blagojevich is among 11 people who will be receiving clemency.
Those individuals include Edward DeBartolo Jr., former San Francisco 49ers owner convicted in a gambling fraud scandal; convicted Wall Street financier Michael Milken, who became known as the "junk bond king"; and Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who pleaded guilty in 2009 to tax fraud and lying to federal officials.
Catskills fur trapper can’t believe his luck: ‘I trapped 7 bobcats this winter’ – newyorkupstate.com
Veteran Catskills-area trapper Shawn Coston had his best year ever trapping bobcat this winter, finishing the season last weekend with seven to his credit – a number that the state Department of Environmental Conservation says is “extremely rare.”
Bobcats are elusive and “the (annual) average take per successful trapper hovers around 1.5,” said DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino. “According to DEC’s trapper survey, approximately 1,200 trappers pursued bobcats last season (estimate based on a subset of trappers surveyed). That season, there were 145 successful trappers, indicating that as many as 85 percent of trappers who targeted bobcat did not get one. Even if the survey overestimated the number of bobcat trappers, it’s still safe to say that a majority of trappers do not take a bobcat each season.”
There are many ways to describe Bernie Sanders: a democratic socialist, an independent senator, a Democratic presidential candidate. But the best adjective may just be: consistent. No matter how you label it, Sanders' worldview is locked in.
Over 40 years, Sanders has built his political career on a very focused message about what he calls a "rigged economy."
Now he's running for president, which typically means reacting to what's happening in the world, in real time. But even in the wake of terrorist attacks by ISIS, Sanders' primary focus is still where it's been since the 1970s.