Pennsylvania Environmental and Recycling Update
Pennsylvania is a crossroads state, the north side of the Mason-Dixon line. Philadelphia, in the east, is part of the northeast Atlantic coast megalopolis that stretches from DC to Boston. In the west, Pittsburgh is part of the so-called Rust Belt, the industrial Midwest. In between is an expansive agricultural area, home to the Amish and much of this country’s agriculture. Environmental concerns have risen in Pennsylvania along with the rest of the United States, and auto recycling and salvage is a major component of all of that. Here’s the latest environmental and recycling news from the state of Quaker.
Recycling gets better in Pittsburgh
The famous steel city, Pittsburgh, has made the leap from heavy industry to high-tech; Some of the world’s most innovative technologies come from the great city of Western PA and its universities. Still, despite all this invention and creativity, Pittsburgh has been a little behind in terms of recycling. The Pennsylvania Resource Council aims to change that.
The People’s Republic of China is a long-standing environmental organization in Ohio, one of the state’s biggest advocates for recycling and other green programs. They recently implemented a program to simplify and promote recycling in the city called “Zero Waste Pittsburgh.” Among the most innovative features: recycling audits for businesses and homeowners, and recycling of common hazardous materials such as monitors and cathode ray tube televisions, other electronic devices and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
State, activists join forces to turn golf green
Golf courses have been anathema to environmental activists for years. Expanding links consume exorbitant levels of water, an increasingly scarce resource. And the only way to keep greens green is with pounds of toxic chemicals. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection recently directed one of the state’s leading environmental groups, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, to produce a guide to developing and maintaining green golf courses, a survey released to the public this month.
With input from an environmental consultant, the guide promises to be useful to local government and green-minded course developers across the country. Among his most valuable ideas is the use of native vegetation to reduce water use, a strategy now used by homeowners everywhere. They also describe ways to preserve floodplains, streams, streams, and other watershed areas often damaged by streams.
Three Mile Island nuclear reactor passes environmental review
Three Mile Island has been synonymous with nuclear disaster since a partial collapse in 1979 created the closest nuclear power to the nation. Since then no new nuclear plants have been opened, although several have begun construction in recent years. Under new management, the environmental activist bugaboo is still running today.
As part of its 20-year permit renewal process, the plant underwent an environmental review from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year and received a clean health certificate this month. The permitting process is moving forward and is expected to be complete by the time his current permit expires in 2014, but Pennsylvanians are happy to learn that things are safer on Three Mile Island.