AF&PA Statement on EPA’s Finalization of WOTUS Rule

Are you guilty of wishcycling? Also known as aspirational recycling, wishcycling happens when you put something into the recycling bin without checking whether it’s actually recyclable. We get it! You don’t want to add more waste to the planet, so you toss your item in the recycling bin, hoping it’ll get recycled. Worst-case scenario: If you made a mistake, the recycling facility will be able to fix it. Right? The answer is no. Although people have the best of intentions, wishcycling is one of the biggest issues waste management faces today. This video from the American Forest and Paper Association explains wishcycling. Click Read More below for additional information.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a $1.5 million Diesel Emission Reduction Act grant to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that ultimately will remove tons of air pollution from diesel-fueled activities at and near the Port of Portland. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy visited Portland to announce the grant at an event at Northwest Container Services with Oregon DEQ Administrator Dick Pedersen. Amongst other projects, the EPA-funded grant will assist local companies in replacing 23 heavy-duty short-haul diesel trucks, traveling more than 1.3 million miles in the Portland metro area each year. West Linn Paper Company will play a significant role in the project as the future owner of at least twelve of the new trucks. The company will take older, less efficient equipment out of use and replace it with new vehicles with improved energy efficiency and more effective filters to remove emissions. The positive impact to the environment will be significant – West Linn Paper anticipates that the project will result in a 20% improvement in fuel economy, and filters capable of removing as much as 90% of the tailpipe emissions.

Each year, the electronic industry - one of the world's largest and fastest growing - generates up to 41 million tonnes of e-waste from goods such as computers and smart phones. Forecasts say that figure may reach 50 million tonnes already by 2017. A staggering 60-90 per cent of this waste is illegally traded or dumped, according to UNEP's "Waste Crimes, Waste Risks: Gaps and Challenges In the Waste Sector", launched today in Geneva, at the Conference of Parties to the three major conventions addressing the global waste issue, the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions.