A Morris Plains, New Jersey, woman got an early birthday present on Monday when local sanitation workers found her wedding and engagement rings after sifting through 10 tons of garbage.
Even in this enlightened age of recycling, a majority of all bottles and cans end up in landfills. More than 200 billion beverage containers are sold each year in the U.S., says the nonprofit Container Recycling Institute, but fewer than 75 billion are recycled. That isn't just bad for the environment -- it's money left on the table.
Black employees at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, waste transfer plant were harassed, humiliated and discriminated against by their supervisor for decades, says an attorney representing two workers who filed a complaint against the city.
One FSB 100 company has grown by grabbing a giant share of something almost nobody else wants to touch -- garbage. Not just any trash, but gooey oil-refinery sludge, contaminated Superfund mystery material and radioactive protective clothing. American Ecology specializes in processing (and in some cases recycling) some of the nastiest hazardous waste there is, including low-level radioactive waste and PCBs.
Weeping. Wailing. The fetal position. Any of those would have been a fitting response to the collapse of equities -- and virtually every other asset class -- in 2008 and early 2009. For many, the S&P 500 index's most recent crater on March 9 took on near-talismanic significance. You could almost hear the pleading: Please let that be the bottom. Please let that be the bottom. For now, the spring rally has held, with a euphoric 40% jump in the S&P from its March low to June 1.
A Morris Plains, New Jersey, woman got an early birthday present on Monday when local sanitation workers found her wedding and engagement rings after sifting through 10 tons of garbage.
Even in this enlightened age of recycling, a majority of all bottles and cans end up in landfills. More than 200 billion beverage containers are sold each year in the U.S., says the nonprofit Container Recycling Institute, but fewer than 75 billion are recycled. That isn't just bad for the environment -- it's money left on the table.
Black employees at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, waste transfer plant were harassed, humiliated and discriminated against by their supervisor for decades, says an attorney representing two workers who filed a complaint against the city.
One FSB 100 company has grown by grabbing a giant share of something almost nobody else wants to touch -- garbage. Not just any trash, but gooey oil-refinery sludge, contaminated Superfund mystery material and radioactive protective clothing. American Ecology specializes in processing (and in some cases recycling) some of the nastiest hazardous waste there is, including low-level radioactive waste and PCBs.
Weeping. Wailing. The fetal position. Any of those would have been a fitting response to the collapse of equities -- and virtually every other asset class -- in 2008 and early 2009. For many, the S&P 500 index's most recent crater on March 9 took on near-talismanic significance. You could almost hear the pleading: Please let that be the bottom. Please let that be the bottom. For now, the spring rally has held, with a euphoric 40% jump in the S&P from its March low to June 1.
Last year, downtown Atlanta lost a convention to another Southern city because the visiting group perceived the other city as "greener" than Atlanta. The loss propelled Holly Elmore into action.
In early 2008, Sander Coovert was feeling pretty good about his business, Absolute Tile and Stone. The previous year had ended with sales up 27%, to $2.8 million, at the St. Louis company, which cuts tile and slabs of marble and granite and installs them in residential kitchens and bathrooms. That year Coovert, 40, saw his largest profit ever. But by the end of 2008, as the housing bubble burst and the recession hit, revenue dropped to $2.1 million and the company lost money.
In a sprawling former suitcase factory in New Jersey, a camera crew is filming entrepreneur Tom Szaky and his company, TerraCycle, for a new reality TV show. Ten of the recycling firm's 46 employees sit around a table awaiting Szaky's next challenge. "So, guys," says Szaky, reaching into the pocket of his corduroy jacket and tossing a used toothbrush onto the table. "What are we going to do with this?"
When Lynn Heinisch and her neighbors in Atlanta's Lake Claire neighborhood take their recycling to the curb for pickup each Thursday, they cross their fingers and hope for the best.
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