Grand Rapids Business Journal
Courtesy city of Grand Rapids
Leaders of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and the national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership announced $1.2 million in Renew Michigan grants that will support the largest push in West Michigan history to promote recycling activities.
The announcement was made in a virtual news conference Monday attended by Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss; state Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids; and state Rep. Bradley Slagh, R-Zeeland.
“Today’s EGLE (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) grants provide a tremendous boost toward reaching West Michigan’s environmental and recycling goals,” Slagh said. “These strategic investments reflect West Michigan’s commitment to finding modern and scalable solutions across our entire recycling ecosystem.”
EGLE
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Funding marks the largest push in region’s history to promote recycling activities
Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, state Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, and state Rep. Bradley Slagh, R-Zeeland, joined a virtual news conference today with leaders of the Michigan Dept. of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and the national nonprofit The Recycling Partnership to announce $1.2 million in Renew Michigan grants that will support the largest push in West Michigan history to promote recycling activities.
In addition, Mayor Bliss, EGLE and The Recycling Partnership released results from a new report that shows the City of Grand Rapids successfully reduced curbside recycling contamination by 40% during the city’s “Feet On The Street” (FOTS) campaign last fall – the best performance in the state among the seven communities that participated in the new 2020 pilot program launch.
Repeat dirty recyclers in Grand Rapids will need to undergo education program to restart service
Updated Mar 08, 2021;
Posted Mar 08, 2021
Recycling at the Kent County Recycling and Education Center in Grand Rapids on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. More than $450,000 in combined recycling grants were awarded to Kent County.
Cory Morse | MLive.com
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GRAND RAPIDS, MI Grand Rapids residents who repeatedly fill their recycling carts with trash or dirty recyclables could soon have to complete an educational program before their carts are returned to service.
The new initiative is part of an educational campaign spearheaded by the city that’s planned for this spring to decrease contaminated materials and non-recyclables, specifically plastic bags, from entering the recycling stream.
Toxic contamination usually gets this dramatic only in Hollywood.
In the week before Christmas 2019, commuters on I-696 in Madison Heights were startled by a fluorescent green chemical ooze weeping from a concrete retaining wall along an earthen embankment, the substance puddling on the freeway s shoulder.
Tests later showed the ooze laden with hexavalent chromium, prolonged exposures to which can cause nasal and sinus cancers, kidney and liver damage. The source was obvious, straight up the embankment from the oozing site: Electro-Plating Services, a struggling chrome plating business long on the radar of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its hazardous waste mismanagement.