Houston's 14 percent recycling rate is downright dismal (San Francisco's is 80 percent). The city's entry in the Bloomberg Philanthropies' Mayor's Challenge seeks to change this by taking the onus off of individuals to decide what's recyclable.
Ariel Schwartz reports on Houston's Total Reuse initiative, a program that pulls together existing technologies to create a new paradigm in waste disposal. If the project is successful, it could raise that dismal recycling rate to 75 percent.
"Instead of trying to overhaul local culture and regulation, the city is working on an ambitious plan to build the first total material resource recovery facility--an innovation that would allow residents to toss all their trash into a single bin, let technology to do all the sorting, and emerge in the end with usable products," says Schwartz.
Based on extensive research into what other metropolises have implemented, Laura Spanjian, Houston’s sustainability director, developed a system that "combines many of these technologies: It would take everyone’s trash in one bin and send it to a facility that pulls out every piece of recyclable material and separates out food waste. Recyclable commodities would be sold, and food waste would be turned into compost or put in an anaerobic digester to power facilities or trucks. Another portion of the waste would be turned into gasoline."
"Spanjian says that she would be thrilled if Houston won the $5 million Mayor’s Challenge, but that the process is going ahead regardless. 'Having the grand prize money would help us go faster, help us implement to initial pieces that much quicker,' she says. 'But we’re on a path to implement this.'"
FULL STORY: Houston’s Plan To Make Landfills Extinct

Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage
Trump deemed the landmark civil rights agreement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees
More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?

In Both Crashes and Crime, Public Transportation is Far Safer than Driving
Contrary to popular assumptions, public transportation has far lower crash and crime rates than automobile travel. For safer communities, improve and encourage transit travel.

Report: Zoning Reforms Should Complement Nashville’s Ambitious Transit Plan
Without reform, restrictive zoning codes will limit the impact of the city’s planned transit expansion and could exclude some of the residents who depend on transit the most.

Judge Orders Release of Frozen IRA, IIJA Funding
The decision is a victory for environmental groups who charged that freezing funds for critical infrastructure and disaster response programs caused “real and irreparable harm” to communities.
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