Susan G Komen Walk

Action is a proud sponsor of the Susan G Komen foundation and every year we like to participate in the big NYC 5k Race for a Cure. This was especially exciting this year for the Action team as we asked our newest employees from the recent Interstate Waste Services acquisition to participate. Coming together for the first time and participating in a cause that effects us all in one way or another.

Some employees raced for the women in their family, a mother, sister or a friend. We are so proud of all the employees that participated in this years race. We got to have a lot of fun too!

Action a proud partner of CEO

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Action is a proud partner of the Center for Employment Opportunity program. We believe in a brighter future for everyone. We believe in second chances and influencing public policy to give those chances. It affects us all. 

Below is a video for The Center for Employment Opportunities' (CEO) proven model helps break the cycle of incarceration and saves taxpayers' money. This video was the result of a collaboration of MTV, Catchafire, and CEO. CEO-change that works.

Follow them on Twitter: @ceoworks
Like on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ceoworks

Builder Better Futures: Eco-Friendly Policies for Business and Individuals

Builder Better Futures: Eco-Friendly Policies for Business and Individuals

By Sam Marquit

 

The world is growing, and knowledge is everywhere. People are learning how to significantly reduce the amount of waste in their lives. In today's world landfills have taken over, deforestation has increased and the majority of people aren't recycling their waste. There are small and big things that people and businesses can do to lessen the burden on Mother Earth. In my work as a contractor, I've seen the green materials market grow to $116 billion. People are more concerned about the environment and what's going to happen to our planet in just a few hundred years. The market is expected to grow to $254 billion in 2020, which is hard to believe considering the amount of pollution and waste that doesn't seem to be avoidable. Many practices that are seen in a commercial setting can be implemented at the home front.

 

Millions of people go to Las Vegas every year. They come to this desert specifically for the promise of a good time. The casinos, luxury hotels and entertainment are some of the top reasons that travelers will cross-oceans to visit. Still there is one hotel that is doing something different for the environment. The Las Vegas Palazzo Hotel and Resort changed some of its policies to be more sustainable and less wasteful. They included a watering system for their landscapes that saves eight million gallons of water every year. This system incorporates drip irrigation, moisture sensors and artificial turf grass. Because of its sustainable features, the hotel was recently named the most eco friendly hotel in America.

At home people can change the way that they use water for landscapes and gardens as well. They can install drip irrigation systems, too, or they can reuse gray water from showers and washer machines to water gardens. There are also ways to collect rainwater. People can install low flow toilet and tank less water heaters to lessen water waste throughout the home.

 

Recycling is one of the major ways that people contribute to living green. They are able to reduce most aluminum, paper and plastic products just with curbside pickup. There are also drop-off locations throughout the city that will take other items like wood scraps, paint, hazardous chemicals and much more. The ARIA hotel created a large sorting center to reduce its waste. Now the hotel diverts 47 percent of waste from going to landfills, and they send food scraps to local farms. Individuals are learning how to use compost bins to use food scraps to fertilize their lawns and cut back on waste as well. Another practice that is gaining popularity is “up cycling”. Instead of throwing away old or worn out items, people are finding new and creative uses for those items.

 

It is important that businesses and homeowners a like continue to innovate the industry. Vegas sees millions of travelers each year, staying at the various hotels and casinos. If a city like Las Vegas can implement green infrastructure, so can a homeowner.

Sam Marquit
fmarquitv.tumblr.com

Action honors Encore Community Service at Yankee Stadium

Action's Jenna DiBella honored Anthony Concepcion, Encore's Weekend Manager, at the Yankee Game last night (8/13/13).

 

Action has worked with Encore Community Services for the past 4 years inviting our employees to volunteer several times of year.

Encore Community Services, is an oasis’s in the heart of Manhattan extending from 14th to 110 Street on the West side. Providing support, meals, social services, and housing for hundreds of homeless and low income elderly living in and around this area; Providing elderly with whatever means possible, so their remaining years  can be lived in dignity and comfort.

Caution: Waste Can Be Hazardous to Company Health

When does an everyday product like bleach become hazardous waste that requires special handling when disposed of by stores? This is not an academic question; companies that lack policies to adequately address it could face large fines or even criminal charges.

Case in point: On May 28 Bentonville, Arkansas–based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. agreed to pay more than $80 million after pleading guilty to six counts of violating the Clean Water Act in California and one count of violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) in Missouri.

The six Clean Water Act charges were filed by the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles and San Francisco and consolidated in the Northern District of California. According to documents filed in the U.S. district court in San Francisco, before January 2006 Wal-Mart did not have a program in place and failed to train employees on proper hazardous waste management and disposal. As a result, products like cleaners and aerosols were placed in municipal trash bins or poured into the local sewer. Hazardous waste products were also transported without proper safety documentation to return centers.

In the western district of Missouri, the retailer admitted that between 2006 and 2008, it trucked more than 2 million pounds of pesticides and household products from return centers to a recycling facility, where the pesticides were mixed and processed for reuse without the required registration, ingredients, or use information.

The company was slapped with civil and criminal penalties—the first time a case of this type resulted in criminal charges. Combined with the civil penalties it paid earlier in California and Missouri for the same acts detailed in the federal cases, the total financial penalty Wal-Mart racked up was more than $100 million.

And it could have been worse. Clean Water Act violations require an automatic suspension and debarment from federal contracts. But in this instance, according to Michael Jacob Steel, a partner at Morrison & Foerster, Wal-Mart was able to get assurances that there would be no impact on its government contracts. Joseph Johns, chief of the environmental crimes section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California and lead prosecutor of the federal case, would not comment on the criminal charges or penalties. He did say this: "Federal laws apply to every company in the nation without regard to the size of the company. It is simply unacceptable for any business to manage its hazardous waste by dumping it down the drain or dumping it in the trash."

Environmental law can be a difficult area for companies to navigate. "Environmental regulations can be very complex and expensive to comply with," says Johns. "While a bottle of nail polish may be harmless sitting on a shelf, if broken in the store or returned after being opened, it becomes a hazardous waste that must be properly stored, managed, transported, and disposed of."

Wal-Mart is not the first major retailer to face penalties related to waste disposal. Morrison & Foerster's Steel, who specializes in environmental compliance and enforcement defense, says that one of his first cases settled in August 2007, when The Home Depot agreed to pay almost $10 million in a civil case over its failure to properly store and transport hazardous waste.

Since then, other companies have entered into similar agreements, including Costco ($3.6 million), CVS ($14.6 million), Kmart ($8.7 million), Save Mart ($2.6 million), Target ($22.5 million), and Walgreens ($16.6 million). (Asked to comment, only CVS responded, saying that it has taken steps to "bolster" its program by establishing reporting requirements and revising employee training for handling hazardous materials in its retail stores.)The numbers alone should get the attention of retailers. "When you add the recent fines in the Wal-Mart case," says Steel, "these are big numbers that are only going to generate the increased interest of regulators."

Until the federal case against Wal-Mart, Steel says that all the cases were civil actions, mainly involving California. There are reasons the bulk of the cases came from there, he says. One is the long-standing partnership between local prosecutors and county health departments, which share information and coordinate environmental compliance investigations.

"California also has a special test for toxicity called the 'Fish Kill' test," says Steel. "Investigators will pour the product into a fish tank to see how long they will survive. If the fish die, it's a hazardous waste, even if federal law says it is not."

 
The best way that companies can avoid problems is by creating rules and training employees. Steel works with in-house attorneys, including those at Kmart and Costco, to develop and implement compliance policies. "Many companies already have policies and programs in place; those that don't are putting themselves at risk," says Steel. "Creating a plan takes time, costs money, and is complex and should not be done in crisis mode after receiving a call from a prosecutor." David Rieser, special counsel at Much Shelist, says compliance programs should include two components: one on storing damaged goods and another on handling customer returns. "Everyone in the stores must be trained, from managers to those stocking the shelves," says Rieser. Codes must be created to identify the materials, and bins set aside for disposal, he adds.

Wal-Mart created a program to address these issues in 2006. According to a press release, it includes employee training and a compliance office made up of, among others, former officials with the Environmental Protection Agency. "We continue to run the same program in every store and club that was deployed years ago," Phyllis Harris, chief compliance officer at Wal-Mart U.S., said in a statement.  Johns says simply having a policy isn't enough. "Corporate counsel must take extra steps to conduct rigorous internal audits, correct any violations identified, discipline employees responsible for the violations, and then disclose the shortcomings to federal regulators," he says.

"There are safe harbor provisions in place to shield a company from charges identified during an internal audit," he adds. "But for a company to avail itself of the shield, regulators must be notified."

 

Sherry Karabin

Corporate Counsel

2013-08-12 00:00:00.0

China's Green Fence

China’s Green Fence

What is China’s Green Fence and how does it impact you?

 

As the U.S. became a consumer economy with a shrinking manufacturing base, Chinese manufacturing was growing. The U.S. generates more scrap than it is able to consume domestically. Meanwhile Chinese demand for raw materials grew and recyclables are a lower cost raw material compared to virgin raw materials.

 

          The United States has been exporting its raw materials such as metal, paper, plastic and more, instead of recycling the materials here in the U.S. While this is good for the trade deficit with China – scrap is our largest export to that country – the quality of recyclables is becoming a problem. China is implementing higher standards on imports of recycled material via Operation Green Fence. This could have quite an impact on the recycling industry and the U.S. in a broader context, forcing the U.S. to have higher standards for what they export worldwide.

 

          One reason the United States began exporting to China is because, as a result of the large amount of goods we import from them, the shipping containers that carried those goods were being sent back to the country empty. It made sense to send them back filled with bales of empty cardboard boxes which those goods had been packed in because China does not have the forest resources that the U.S. does. Most of China’s packaging was previously made from recycled fibers which proved quite flimsy. China wanted to import our high quality cardboard to mix in with their low quality fibers to make better packaging. This win-win situation began the exporting of our recyclables.

 

          Beginning in February of 2013 China launched what they’re calling “Operation Green Fence“, a 10-month long initiative that kicked off in February to prevent the importation of solid waste-contaminated shipments. Operation Green Fence has set a limit of 1.5 percent prohibitive, or allowable contaminant, in each bale, in an effort to keep trash out of China. Headed by Wang Jiwei, vice president and secretary-general of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association Recycling Metal Branch (CMRA), the new initiative will include random inspection of all forms of “imported waste,” meaning metal, plastic, textiles, rubber and recovered paper materials.

         

Therefore all recyclable material must be separated thoroughly before being placed into the recycling bin. Food waste left on a container can contaminate the whole bin. To maximize your recycling efforts it is important to make sure that no food waste gets into the recycling receptacle.

 

Community Garden

As many of you know Action works a lot with the Lou Gehrig Middle school in the Bronx. Over this past year we formed an environmental club with the school called N.E.A.T. There are 15 students in the club that felt inspired to join this club because they want to make a change in their local communities. On June 18th a few members of the Action team went to go re cultivate a local community garden. Thanks to the help and donations of Downes Tree Service we were able to turn an almost abandoned garden into a lively and colorful place in front of the local community center.

It was a really fun morning and the kids put in a ton of work! We all were astounished by the transformation!

Before and After photos