Freshkills Park is the 30-year phased transformation of New York City’s notorious Fresh Kills Landfill into a sprawling system of parks three times the size of Central Park. In honor of National Poetry Month, organizers are holding a Haiku (a type of poem written in three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables) contest to articulate people’s hopes for and observations of the project.

According to the Freshkills Park blog, winners are eligible for prizes and publication. Entries should be e-mailed, along with your name and age, to FreshkillsPark@parks.nyc.gov by Friday, April 24th at 5:00 p.m.

Our contributions:

Literal wasteland

Someone finally woke up

And picked up the mess

An island of trash

Turned verdant green, bit by bit.

Soccer, anyone?

Don’t forget that we are in the midst of the inaugural National Cell Phone Recycling Week (April 6-12), an effort by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tied to Earth Day celebrations. The event is a joint effort between EPA’s Plug-In To eCycling program and leading cell phone manufacturers, retailers and service providers to increase national awareness about the importance of cell phone recycling.

“With Earth Day approaching, people are thinking about what they can do to give back to our planet,” said Matt Hale, director of EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery, in a press release. “Recycling your old cell phone is a great way to conserve resources and help make a greener world.”

As part of the event, Plug-In partners across the country, including AT&T, Samsung, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, are introducing a series of in-store promotions, contests, and giveaways. The partners will provide in-store and online recycling opportunities for consumers.

A study noting that people don’t want to see landfills built in their communities is about as shocking as revelations that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens used steroids.

Still, a recent survey published by the Saint Consulting Group has to be at least somewhat dismaying to the solid waste industry.

The report found that landfills are the most unpopular type of real estate development in the United States. Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed said they would oppose the construction of a landfill in their community. Casinos and aggregate quarries were next on the most unpopular list, with disapproval rates of 77 percent and 62 percent, respectively. (And here I always thought the American dream was to live next to a quarry.)

If there is good news to be found in the results — and I’m admittedly reaching here — it’s that the landfill disapproval rate has been higher in previous surveys, although this year’s rate increased one percentage point from the 2008 report.

So, what are landfill owners and operators to do? Frankly, it’s hard to imagine the overall national attitude about landfills ever dramatically changing. However, it’s quite possible for an individual landfill to develop good relationships with the surrounding community.

In “A Balancing Act,” a feature in the upcoming April issue of Waste Age, Joe Benco and Dave Call of Republic Services outline the steps that those developing a new landfill or expanding an existing site can take to develop a positive relationship with the neighbors of the facility. In short: get the public involved early and often. The Indiana landfill profiled in the story created a pheasant habitat and undertook several other initiatives to build the trust of the local community. Landfills may not receive the heartiest initial welcome from the surrounding area, but they can become trusted and valued neighbors. And they should make every effort to do so.

At Waste Age, we’d like to detail more of these kinds of landfill success stories. Please e-mail me at sursery@wasteage.com if you have an interesting tale to tell.

The Philadelphia Phillies, Global Spectrum and Citizens Bank Park have set a goal of diverting 20 to 25 of the cardboard, plastic, glass and aluminum used this season, building upon a 15 percent recycling rate in 2008. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, the goal is part of a broader program, titled “Red Goes Green,” which this year will include new food items, merchandise and promotions at Citizens Bank Park to raise environmental awareness.

“To achieve their recycling goal, the Phillies emphasized they won’t just need help from the fans, but that the increase in recycling tonnage has to come from within. Currently, the Phillies’ staff is undertaking efforts to include DC batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, scrap metal, vinyl material and carpeting/flooring material. Barstools already have been refurbished by recycling upholstery.

In addition, the Phillies will try to fill all of the stadium’s energy needs through renewable sources, as the organization did last season.

Many recycling programs refuse to accept rigid plastic bottle caps in regular curbside collection because of their tendency to contaminate other plastics and difficulty in sorting them out. Indeed, it is easy for even diligent recyclers to overlook these tiny bits of plastic. But those little bits add up, not to mention the hazards they pose to wildlife.

According to the Chicago Green Lifestyle Examiner, salon and beauty product maker Aveda is specifically targeting rigid polypropylene plastic caps for recycling. The green-minded company, based in Blaine, Minn., is accepting the caps at all of its stores and is encouraging schools to run cap-collecting programs. Aveda will use the material in its redesigned packaging, which it expects to debut later this year.

The following firms recently joined the Washington-based Waste Equipment Technology Association: Grapevine, Texas-based Scott Distribution LLC (dba Scott Containers SPC Capital Inc.) and Phoenix-based Leadpoint Business Services.

Thanks to cheap disposal costs, scant regulation and a growing abundance of landfill space, South Carolina is fast becoming a favorite repository for out-of-state trash. According to the Washington-based National Solid Wastes Management Association, South Carolina ranks ninth in importing trash, behind Virginia and Georgia in the Southeast. Pennsylvania is No. 1. But an Associated Press report says South Carolina, with several huge new landfill projects on the horizon, is at risk of becoming the nation’s go-to dumping site.

It is no surprise that conservationists, residents and politicians are strongly against such a fate for the state, and are calling for a moratorium on all new landfill construction until a way can be found to limit trash imports (while preserving the much-needed revenue they provide).

Lee County’s landfill — the state’s largest — illustrates the dilemmas facing local officials and residents. The dump takes in about 1.5 million tons of garbage annually, 65 percent of it from the Northeast, according to the state. It also accounted for the bulk of all garbage brought to South Carolina from other states last year.

“Financially, we would be in very tough shape without it,” said county treasurer Wayne Capell.

On Tuesday, a state Senate panel will consider a statewide moratorium on landfill permitting. The bipartisan measure would halt any potential expansion or creation of landfills until 2011. Given the plight of state and local governments in the current economy, it’s only natural that they would jump at the easy revenue dangled by waste companies wanting to build or expand landfills and other states wanting to ship out their trash. Is there a way to still capitalize on this revenue while balancing the interests of residents and the environment?

We’ve been hearing about the recycling crash for a while now, but as the world’s biggest importer of recyclables, it’s worth noting how hard it is hitting China. According to the New York Times, recyclables from around the world, once a fuel for fevered manufacturing, are now simply stacking up in mountainous piles across the country, worth less and less every day:

“Everything was moving along just fine until October and then we fell off a cliff,” said Bruce Savage, a spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade organization that mostly represents American waste processing companies.

The United States exported $22 billion worth of recycled materials to 152 countries in 2007. Now the organization estimates the value of American recyclables has decreased by 50 to 70 percent. Western dealers say they are grappling with mounting stockpiles whose value in many cases continues to sink. To make matters worse, Chinese importers have been demanding to renegotiate contracts drastically downward. In some cases, they are refusing to accept shipments they already have a contractual obligation to take.

Will recycling recover when the economy recovers, or are the wounds currently being inflicted on the markets irreparable?

We interrupt this blog to bid a fond farewell to our associate editor, Chris Carlson, who this week finds himself out in the wide world. During his roughly two-year tenure at Waste Age, Chris did stellar news gathering and reporting and was just plain fun to have around. His contributions will be sorely missed. We wish him all success in future endeavors!

After years of virtual dormancy, the waste-to-energy (WTE) sector may be on the verge of something of a renaissance. And, ironically, it is rising environmental concerns that may spark the industry’s rebirth.

More than a decade ago, construction of WTE plants came to a standstill as cheap tipping fees and fuel prices increased the appeal of landfilling waste. The opposition of environmentalists and residents concerned about the plants’ emissions also played an important role in halting the industry’s momentum.

However, in early March, a bipartisan group of 15 U.S. senators sent a letter to Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate energy committee, urging him to include WTE in an upcoming bill’s definition of “renewable energy.” The bill would establish a national renewable energy standard. The letter writers include such high-profile legislators as Chuck Schumer of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

“It would only help us meet our clean energy production goals to think broadly abut what types of energy are considered renewable, understanding that stringent environmental standards must remain paramount in any such assessment,” the letter states. (To view the letter, visit the Integrated Waste Services Association’s Web site at www.wte.org.)

And in a report released in a January, the Geneva-based World Economic Forum listed WTE as one of eight renewable energy sources that will provide a “meaningful contribution” to a “future low-carbon energy system.” (To view the report, called the “Green Investing Report,” visit www.weforum.org.)

According to a Wall Street Journal article in late 2008, proposals for new or expanded WTE plants have still met with public opposition due to environmental concerns. However, the industry maintains that the facilities now use much more stringent emission control technologies. If indeed that is the case and enough of the public can be convinced, the WTE industry could be on the verge of playing an invaluable role in tackling the problems of global warming.