Good Wednesday morning. The middle of the week has arrived. It’s mostly downhill from here, I promise.
I grew up in the 1970s, just when recycling was becoming a mainstream concept, thanks to rising awareness about the damage humans were doing to the planet, the gathering strength of the environmental movement (remember that the first Earth Day was held in 1970), and a mounting problem about overflowing landfills.
Interestingly, garbage collection (AKA organized waste management) didn’t become a service offered by major American cities until the late 1800s.
Before that, people were in the habit of reusing things (they generally had a lot less disposal income and this was many decades before things like plastic and fast-fashion). They also composted, buried and/or burned their waste, or just threw it in the streets, rivers, or open spaces, creating a public health hazard.
Ancient cultures recycled out of scarcity and necessity – using every inch of an animal, for example, was a foregone conclusion, given how much effort and time went into hunting it, and repurposing building materials was a smarter use of time than constantly going out to forge for more of them.
Fast forward to WWII, when people on the home front were encouraged to “Salvage for Victory” by sorting through and donating everything from scrap paper and tin cans to nylons and toothpaste in order to support the war effort.
In the 190s, then-President Lyndon Johnson started passing legislation to protect the environment – including but not limited to the 1963 Clean Air Act, the 1964 Wilderness Act, the 1965 Water Quality Act, and the 1966 Endangered Species Act – and the concept of reduce, reuse, recycle really started to take hold.
Recycling can be big business. Stats collected by the EPA found that recycling in the US was at one time responsible for approximately 700,000 jobs that generated more than $38 billion in wages and over $5 billion in tax revenues per year. A 2017 study on the economic impacts of recycling in Texas found that recycling municipal solid waste (MSW) alone accounted for more than $3.3 billion.
Sadly, while the EPA reports that the recycling rate for MSW has increased from less than 7% in 1960 to just over 35% in 2017, rates vary widely from one community and one state to another, and also differs greatly between residential, commercial, and industrial recyclers.
In fact, by a whole slew of account, we are in the midst of a recycling crisis, with recycling plants shuttering across the nation and the market for recycled goods collapsing across the globe.
China’s so-called National Sword law had a lot to do with it. But another, perhaps equally significant, part of the problem is that Americans need to be re-educated on what proper recycling looks like, because they are throwing a lot of non-recyclables into the green (or blue or what have you) bins, contaminating the stream and making it too expensive to process.
Another problem is that we are simply losing faith in the promise of recycling as a concept. A 2019 national poll found that while 85% of respondents claim they recycle, 44% don’t actually believe their efforts are worthwhile because they don’t think what they put in the bins are actually being recycled.
Today is Global Recycling Day, which was created in 2018 by the Global Recycling Foundation “to help recognize, and celebrate, the importance recycling plays in preserving our precious primary resources & securing the future of our planet.”
Temperatures will remain below average today, hitting highs only in the mid-30s, but we’ll have less wind and no precipitation (fingers crossed) with a mix of sun and clouds on tap.
In the headlines…
The Trump administration is opening a fraud probe in Florida as it expands its nationwide crackdown on state Medicaid programs.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared to confirm the move in a post on the social platform X, claiming that the state had become a “hotspot for health care fraud” in recent years.
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation yesterday, citing his concerns about the justification for military strikes in Iran and saying he “cannot in good conscience” back the Trump administration’s war.
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent wrote in a letter to Trump. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Listening to Trump in recent days is to hear a president debating whether to order the biggest Iran mission of all: to seize or destroy the near-bomb-grade nuclear material believed to be largely stored deep under a mountain in Isfahan.
A federal judge nullified nearly all actions that the Trump administration took to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that broadcast to countries with limited press protections, including Iran, China and Russia.
Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is projected to win the Illinois Senate Democratic primary — a major win for both her and Gov. JB Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender who put his name and money behind her.
Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston, Ill., has won the Democratic primary for the state’s 9th congressional district, according to a race call by The AP, topping a crowded field in the race for a Chicago-area seat that has not been open for nearly three decades.
Republican Andrea Verobish is projected to defeat Democrat Caleb McCoy in a special election for Pennsylvania’s 79th House District vacated by former state Rep. Lou Schmitt, a Republican, who resigned after he was elected to a judgeship.
Trump let a key filing deadline pass yesterday without endorsing a candidate in Texas’ Senate race, locking in a high-stakes Republican runoff between the incumbent, John Cornyn, and the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for withholding funds designed to extend the Second Avenue subway west into Harlem.
“We’re suing the Trump administration for illegally withholding billions of dollars for the Second Avenue Subway extension. For months, they’ve stood in the way of progress. New Yorkers can’t afford to wait,” Hochul wrote on X.
The trial lawyers’ lobby is one of the most deep-pocketed and influential groups targeting Albany — putting it on a crash course with Hochul over her push to crack down on runaway litigation, a new report revealed.
Environmental advocates who brought a lawsuit now caught amid an effort by Hochul’s administration to roll back the very law they were trying to protect are firing back.
Hochul’s push to rewrite New York’s climate law is shaping up to be the paramount battle with the Democratic-dominated Legislature in this month’s state budget talks. There are still a lot of questions.
The U.S. and Israeli war against the Iranian terror regime, which has orchestrated and abetted numerous attacks on civilians in the US, the Jewish state and elsewhere, is getting in the way of Hochul’s efforts to fight hatred of Jews and Muslims in New York.
Queens Rep. Grace Meng led Hochul and several other elected officials on a tour of Flushing to hear from local businesses about the challenges they are facing during a period of “deep uncertainty and concern”.
The Republican looking to unseat state Attorney General Letitia James sees a path to victory because New Yorkers are “tired of the lawlessness” under her watch, she said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s law department yesterday sought a judge’s approval to stop representing former Mayor Eric Adams in a sexual assault lawsuit brought against him in 2024.
In a filing in State Supreme Court, Corporation Counsel Steve Banks argued Adams shouldn’t be represented by the city because, contrary to an earlier determination, he wasn’t acting within the scope of his city employment when the alleged assault occurred.
“Mayor Adams… remains confident that the facts will ultimately prevail. We do not comment on ongoing litigation,” said Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for Adams.
Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville yesterday gave a vague defense of his social media post linking Mamdani to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks while downplaying whether the remarks were offensive.
Mamdani celebrated his first St. Patrick’s Day as mayor with a dramatic show of respect for two groups he may have offended in the past — members of the Catholic community and police officers.
In his St. Patrick’s Day remarks at Gracie Mansion, and then in a video posted on social media, the mayor spoke about Irish history and focused on “the solidarity the Irish have shown with the downtrodden and forgotten,” in particular with Palestinians.
Mamdani moved from avoiding the question of Irish unity to adopting a more sympathetic formulation on it — after TWU President John Samuelsen, a key labor ally, pressed him over breakfast, where the mayor also tied Irish solidarity to Palestine.
The remarks drew criticism from Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, who rapped Mamdani for politicizing St. Patrick’s Day and called him a “master of the politics of victimization.”
Mamdani is officially pressing the City Council to drain the Big Apple’s rainy day fund — setting up a showdown with Speaker Julie Menin.
All 250 homeless men residing inside the massive Midtown shelter set to be shuttered by the Mamdani administration have been relocated to Brooklyn, city officials said.
Mamdani has brought his Muslim faith to the center of his political life, but his effort has faced a backlash.
Mamdani is scaling back his campaign promises to support tenants and homeless New Yorkers by failing to expand the CityFHEPS program, tenant and shelter advocates said during a rally at City Hall yesterday.
Landlords of rent-stabilized apartments are urging Mamdani to lobby to fix a state law they claim is keeping thousands of vacant rent-stabilized units off the market — even as the city grapples with homelessness and an affordable housing problem.
Mamdani’s pitch to President Trump for a historic federal investment in a Sunnyside housing project won the admiration of a frequent White House adversary: former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Erin Dalton, who is starting her job as commissioner of social services under Mamdani, says she’ll be tackling some of the country’s toughest problems.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber insisted that “nobody” in city or state government has asked him about Mamdani’s administration’s reported proposal to test out fare-free buses across the city during the FIFA World Cup this summer.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development launched new resources to help homeowners add ADUs to their properties, and began once again – after a two-year pause – accepting applications for a program to finance the projects.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is urging the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to reject a proposal to demolish a parking garage in NoHo because it could destroy a narrow passageway that’s believed to be part of the Underground Railroad.
An off-duty Police Department officer is under investigation after he shot a man in the head in the Bronx, the police said. The officer is part of the security operation at Gracie Mansion and City Hall, according to two people with knowledge of the shooting.
The researchers behind a new paper on rental costs say that actually, building more market-rate housing won’t drive down rents.
Employees of an Upper East Side beauty salon allegedly refused service to a Black customer and her young daughter, telling the pair they don’t do their “kind of hair,” according to a racial discrimination lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan.
A police officer pepper-sprayed a group of women Sunday morning after police were summoned to Washington Tavern in Albany for reports of a man armed with a knife.
A prominent nonprofit theater in New York has settled a lawsuit claiming that a discount offered to people of color was racially discriminatory.
Multiple New York Catholic schools will be forced to either shutter or consolidate at the end of the academic year due to “significant challenges,” the archdiocese announced.
A grand jury handed up charges of aggravated cruelty to animals and criminal mischief, both felonies, against the owner of a dog boarding business in Halfmoon, Saratoga County District Attorney Brett Eby announced.
Utility crews confronted widespread power outages yesterday after an overnight storm brought powerful winds to upstate New York. The persistence of the wind prompted Whiteface Mountain ski resort in Wilmington to close the slopes.
A Troy man was arrested after investigators said he used social media to post antisemitic threats aimed at a local religious leader, members of the Jewish community and the U.S. president.
Touring the 20th anniversary of his 2004 album Tha Carter, rapper Lil Wayne is coming to Albany Med Health System at SPAC this summer.
For years, the smell in Menands and North Albany has led residents to complain. This week, Albany County discussed a timeline for fixing the smell – and identified its source.
Cohoes High School will begin new security screening procedures at the end of the month, the district announced. The new metal detection scanner system will be placed at the school’s main entrance.
Siena College basketball team members began their NCAA journey on Saint Patrick’s Day – fitting for a team nicknamed the Saints.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
