A recent story in the Las Vegas Sun reveals that the Las Vegas Convention Center and Cashman Center recycled more than half of the waste material collected at those facilities in 2009. That gives the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which operates both facilities, one of the highest diversion rates among U.S. meeting facilities operators.

From the article:

[Taryle Spain, director of client services for the LVCVA and leader of its “green team”] said overall, the LVCVA recovered 2,665.9 tons of materials of 4,070.7 tons processed for a recovery rate of 66 percent. That percentage is well ahead of most of the city’s convention rivals and just ahead of the Orlando convention center’s reported recycling rate of 65 percent.

Waste Age is well acquainted with the Las Vegas Convention Center, as it seems like WasteExpo is held there every other year (but not this year). While I have not spied any separate recycling receptacles during those shows, it’s likely most of the material is being separated post collection.

Okay, maybe it’s not an Oscar, but New Jersey’s Union County Utilities Authority (UCUA) was recently honored with a Silver MERCURY Award in the Public Awareness Video category for its educational video, “It’s Not Waste If It’s Energy.”

The slick video, viewable below, sings the praises of waste to energy (WTE) in general and the Union County, N.J. WTE plant in particular, highlighting the benefits of the technology and its status as a renewable resource.

The MERCURY Awards, established in 1987 by MerCOMM Inc., recognize outstanding achievements in professional communications. Winners were chosen from 290+ categories and classifications, honoring “creativity, determination, functionality, originality, and smart thinking.”

So often are valuable things found in the trash, and so often does it end in a lawsuit.

So it went for Casey Ray, a St. Louis hair salon owner who in March 2009 was lucky enough to stumble across discarded but highly valuable scripts for the films “New Moon” (second in the blockbuster “Twilight” vampire series beloved by tween girls and their mothers, released late last year) and “Remember Me” (still unreleased) in the Dumpster behind her business. Ray returned the scripts to production company Summit Entertainment in exchange for tickets to the premieres and after-parties for each film, and autographed copies of the scripts.

After attending the events for “New Moon,” Ray decided to sell the “Remember Me” tickets on eBay. Summit balked and was further angered when Ray then tried to unload the tickets via private sale. They grudgingly agreed that Ray could transfer the tickets, but only if she relinquished the autographed scripts, prompting the inevitable lawsuit from Ray.

There’s a solution here. Perhaps Ray could be hired to tease out the hair of the brooding vampires and werewolves in the imminent third “Twilight” film?

Source: St. Louis Business Journal

What to do with misbegotten or just plain unwanted art of your own creation? Setting it out by the curb might to send the wrong message to the neighbors about your faith in your own abilities, and burning it seems a touch melodramatic.

So there’s certainly a need for Art Bin, an installation by British artist Michael Landy. Literally a room-sized steel and polycarbonate waste receptacle at the South London Gallery in England, the bin is filled with drawings, paintings, sculptures and other pieces deemed unworthy or simply disposable by their creators. Established artists, amateurs and students from around the world have augmented its contents. According to Landy, the growing pile of creative detritus is, itself, an artistic statement. As he told CBC News, Art Bin mulls “the worth our society gives to things.” Each new submission changes the nature of the piece.

True to the ephemeral spirit of the work, Art Bin will close on March 14 and all of its contents will be shipped to a landfill. Whether the landfill operator has the foresight to repurpose the facility as a gallery and start charging admission remains to be seen.

Source: CBC News

Last weekend, several Home Depot stores in our area were accepting old oil and latex paint for recycling. My wife and I took them up on their offer (yes, that’s me at right), since we’ve accumulated quite a bit of unwanted paint — mostly a trunk-load of quart-sized samples, indicative of our indecision in choosing final colors for our home. The collected paint will be separated by type (oil or latex) and then mixed into two or three hues (usually “warm” and “cool”) and donated to bedeck low-income housing, government buildings, etc.

Waste Age has covered paint recycling before and I even saw Mike Rowe do it on “Dirty Jobs,” but it still seems like an extremely rare phenomenon. Prior to this event, whenever we inquired with our local waste handler about the best way to dispose of paint, we were told to either leave the lid off and let it dry out, or absorb it with kitty litter, both ending with a trip to the landfill. That was unacceptable to us, so in the basement it sat until a better option came along.

Do you have regular access to paint recycling where you live? If you are a waste handler, does your company offer such a service?

Know any environmentally-minded kids or teens? They might be eligible for recognition. Action For Nature, a San-Francisco-based non-profit, is currently soliciting nominations for its 2010 International Young Eco-Hero Awards, which it says “honor youth ages 8 to 16 for their outstanding accomplishments in environmental advocacy, environmental health, research and protection of the natural world.”

Honorees receive up to $500 cash, an award certificate and tantalizing “other forms of recognition,” which I’m hoping equates to a personalized bobble-head doll.

The application deadline is Feb. 28, 2010. Guidelines and applications are available at http://www.actionfornature.org/eco-hero/ecoheroawards.html

We’ve mentioned it before, but don’t forget to stay tuned to CBS after the Super Bowl for the premiere of “Undercover Boss” featuring Waste Management COO Larry O’Donnell donning a reflective vest and getting his hands dirty for the sake of reality television.

And be sure to check out the February issue of Waste Age, in which we interview O’Donnell about his experience.

Following this year’s Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 7, CBS will premiere a new program called “Undercover Boss.” According to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), the new reality show follows corporate executives who anonymously take entry-level positions with their own companies, ostensibly to see how the other half lives. Hilarity and carefully edited personal growth no doubt ensue.

What makes “Undercover Boss” pertinent to this blog, however, is that the post-Super Bowl premiere features Waste Management president and COO Larry O’Donnell mixing with the hoi polloi. The show will follow Anderson “as he cleans porta-potties and works at a recycling plant,” says THR.

You bought that big, beautiful pumpkin before Halloween with hopes that it would make it through Thanksgiving — double-duty decorating, if you will. But after an early frost, it’s looking alarmingly deflated and you’re left with the dilemma of how best to dispose of the thing. Of course, as industry types, we know composting is the best option. The Daily Green provides some simple tips for effectively composting a pumpkin. Baseball bats are involved.

There was no shortage of trash talk exchanged between New York and Philadelphia during the recently concluded 2009 World Series (congratulations, Yankees … AGAIN). But that’s not the only trash traveling between the two cities.

This week, the New York Times featured a well-written story about New York’s mutually beneficial waste exporting relationship, in which it pays other municipalities — including the Pennsylvania communities of Morrisville, Tullytown and Falls Township — to accept its refuse. Rather than resent the constant stream of trash from New Yorkers, residents of these Phillies-loving towns reap rich financial benefits. They even exhibit pride in their modern landfills, a far cry from New York’s maligned Fresh Kills landfill, the closing of which necessitated this arrangement in the first place.

Interesting read.