Republic Services has announced that the firm will, as allowed under the Security and Exchange Commission’s new “Notice and Access Rule,” make proxy materials available to shareholders online. Instead of mailing the materials to shareholders, the company will send its stockholders a “Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials.” Republic will be required to send a hard copy set of the materials to any shareholder who requests one.

“At Republic Services Inc., ‘eco’ stands for both ecology, as in the enviroment, and economy, as in the financial bottom line,” said Tod Holmes, senior vice president and chief financial officer of the company. “By using the electronic financial filings, Republic will reduce our hard-copy printing of proxy materials by 75 percent, from 36,000 copies to approximately 9,000 copies reducing paper and printing costs.” The firm estimates it will save about 3 million pieces of paper a year.

The non-profit organization American Forests estimates that eliminating the mailing of 300 million proxy material packages would save 800,000 trees each year from being cut down, reduce fossil fuel consumption by about 500,000 gallons annually by eliminating the need to transport the proxy materials, prevent 100,000 tons of paper from going to the nation’s landfills each year, and eliminate 380,000 tons of greenhouse gases produced in the paper manufacturing process.

In a recent Slate article, Brendan I. Koerner seeks to promote the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs by assuaging fears about their mercury content. According to Koerner, the infinitesimal amount of mercury in each bulb is harmless if they are handled properly. And, he goes on to say, any environmental risk is small when compared to the amount of mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants struggling to illuminate all of those incandescent bulbs. I agree with his point. Moreover, I think that we’re still early enough in the CFL lifespan to train consumers to recycle them properly (Koerner agrees that “thousands upon thousands of broken bulbs in a garbage dump could be seriously bad news”). Right now, that means taking them to an IKEA store, a specialty recycler, or mailing them, but Koerner insists more retail chains will soon accept the bulbs.

Meanwhile, Koerner spends 90 percent of his article talking about mercury and only briefly touches on what is, for most people I know, the main knock against CFLs: The horrid, unnatural light they cast. In defense, he cites a 2007 Popular Mechanics article that tested a range of CFLs. It’s all very scientific, employing chromameters and double-blind tests, ultimately declaring the light cast by CFLs “superior.” I would counter with this January 2008 New York Times article that simply involved people looking at lamps and was far less impressed with the light cast by all but a few CFLs.

In addition to conserving energy, CFLs could help remove millions of incandescent bulbs from the waste stream. I am a proponent of their adoption and use several in my home right now. But there are places where they work and places where they don’t, due to the light they cast or actual incompatibility (most don’t work with dimmer switches, for example). The suggestion that every bulb in the home should be swapped out immediately seems disingenuous. I suspect this will be a gradual transition rather than a wholesale one for most consumers.

What do you think?

I recently stumbled across another example of one of the stranger Internet fads of late: trash blogs. This was a phenomenon Deanna Hart covered in Waste Age back in July.The point seems to be to document one’s personal disposal habits over a set period of time. In a popular variation, the person is also required to carry everything they throw away around with them for one or two weeks. While I find this practice mildly interesting, I wonder what benefit we the readers are supposed to receive when it is clearly the author who has the most to learn. To cite “Gabby” in the example above:

“Turns out, out of an entire bag of about a day and a half worth of trash, over 90-percent of it (weight-wise) could be either recycled or composted. I never realized how much recyclables are worth either. Thinking back, my recycling habits are PRETTY BAD.”

And after reading her blog, I would agree. Her recycling habits are atrocious. But how does that help me, other than helping me feel mildly superior to this recycling laggard?

Oh what the heck. So far today I:

- Rinsed and recycled a glass bottle that held peach nectar.

- Recycled a cardboard pasta box from dinner last night.

- Threw away a coffee nip wrapper.

- Recycled three sheets of office paper, a Target receipt (torn up), three credit card offers (torn up), and two catalogs.

Are you fascinated yet?

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is turning to an energy source that it should never run out of: animal dung. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “In about two years, when the plan is fully implemented, the elephant and giraffe houses will be heated, cooled and lit by animal waste converted to energy. At least two other zoos - Denver and Dallas - are in the beginning stages of similar projects.” Zoo officials benefits of the program will include significantly reduced energy expenses and increased landfill diversion.

Duke Energy and the Ohio Department of Development currently are conducting a feasibility study to see how much energy can be produced from the waste, the paper says. Results are due in the spring.

“We have four elephants weighing more than 37,000 pounds, and they produce 800 pounds of waste a day,” Mark Fisher, senior director of facilities and planning for the zoo, told the Enquirer. “That’s at least 20 kw (kilowatts) and enough to heat the elephant house and maybe giraffe house, too (on a daily basis). Right now, we pay Rumpke to haul the waste away, so there’s another savings and another plus because we’re diverting it from a landfill.”

As facilities and communities strive to increase landfill diversion, animal waste, believe it or not, could very well become a diversion target. About two years ago, I wrote about a similar program launched by San Francisco and Norcal Waste Systems.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took time out on Wednesday from considering a presidential run to sign a bill that requires large stores to offer plastic bag recycling programs. According to Reuters, the law “requires all stores that occupy at least 5,000 square feet to implement bag recycling programs as well as make recycled bags available.”

Be sure and check out the Tip Off section in the February issue of Waste Age for Associate Editor Chris Carlson’s story on this new law.

Generally, the goal is to spend as little time in the back of a garbage truck as possible. So it takes a considerable leap in logic to imagine living in one. Nevertheless, courtesy of German custom offroad vehicle manufacturer TerraCross, we have what is, for all intents and purposes, a garbage truck modded into a quite striking recreational vehicle called the “Home on Wheels.”

The interior is tastefully appointed, bringing to mind a rather unlikely IKEA installation. But if the Danish modern design motif doesn’t work for you, you could always just fire up the compactor and start over.

Drivers in 10 cities are hearing a sober-minded message while listening to their favorite wild and wacky morning drive-time radio programs. Earlier this week, the National Solid Wastes Management Association (NSWMA) began airing radio ads urging motorists to exercise extra caution when maneuvering around garbage trucks. The 30-second ads - which are airing in Allentown, Pa.; Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Ala.; Dayton, Ohio; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Greenville, S.C.; Louisville, Ky.; Raleigh, N.C.; Richmond, Va; and Washington, D.C. - are part of NSWMA’s “Slow Down to Get Around” safety awareness program.

The ads began airing in the above-mentioned markets on Jan. 14 and will continue for three weeks. “A substantial number of struck-by accidents in which a motorist runs into a garbage collector take place during the morning commute hours, when motorists are often rushing to work or bringing children to school,” said David Biderman, general counsel for NSWMA, in the press release announcing the radio campaign.

Keeping workers safe is an issue of growing emphasis in the solid waste industry. In the January issue of Waste Age, we examine the various ways in which haulers are working to reduce the risks faced by their employees. We would love to hear your suggested topics for future safety stories.

To hear the “Slow Down to Get Around” ad, visit www.nswma.org.

Barbie Nadeau of Newsweek.com has posted a top-notch account of the garbage strike that is consuming Naples, Italy. Get a load of this passage:

“As the sound rings out from hundreds of Naples’s churches it energizes the rodents scurrying frantically through the six-foot-high piles of rotting garbage festering in the streets because of a garbage strike now entering its fourth week. Stray dogs sometimes join in the feast, picking through the trash and drinking from puddles speckled with cockroach shells. If these Neapolitan trash troubles sound familiar, it’s no wonder. The Italian region of Campania has been experiencing a garbage crisis for almost 14 years, during which time little has changed beyond the contents of the overflowing bins.”

Yikes.

The article goes on to say that the European Commission is threatening Italy with sanctions and/or fines.

Can enough good things be said about “Dirty Jobs?” In a recent episode, host Mike Rowe visited a Norcal Waste Systems transfer station in San Francisco. The show included all the de rigueur gross-out moments: scooping out the leavings in the back of a garbage truck that had just deposited its load, extracting waste from the tracks of a pit bulldozer and, most alarmingly, slogging through a water and waste-filled holding area beneath the area where transfer trailers are loaded. These are tasks that barely give pause to most of our readers. My wife nearly had to leave the room.

But what struck me most was the pride in and devotion to the job displayed by every one of the workers. Moreover, each seemed to have held his or her respective position for a very long time. Rowe asked just about every worker he met how long they’d been doing what they were doing, and the answer came back 10, 20, even 30 years. Amazing.

to out-of-state landfills we go.

David Caruso of the The Associated Press has penned an overview of the issues surrounding the out-of-state disposal of municipal solid waste.

Michael Keller, a member of Fox Township, Pa.’s, Board of Supervisors, tells Caruso that while he has some concerns about what effects accepting more than 1,300 tons of garbage a day from New York City will have on the township’s landfill, the township has benefited substantially. “We’re rich,” he says in the article. “We have less than 4,000 people living here, and we have millions of dollars in the bank.”