The good news is, our collective efforts to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost have made San Francisco the most successful big city in America at reducing what goes to landfill.

McMinnville, Oregon, residents will soon be able to recycle polystyrene thanks to a partnership between Recology Western Oregon, the city’s waste hauler, and Agilyx Corp., Tigard, Oregon.

According to an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality waste generation report, Klamath County recovered 24.3 percent of the 78,171 tons of waste it generated in 2017.

The report, released in December, breaks down “recovery rates” — percentage of waste recycled — by both county and the state as a whole. Klamath County fell below Oregon’s overall 42.8 percent rate, but according to local and state waste experts, Klamath did well despite geographic and economic and barriers.

A California lawmaker introduced legislation this week that would make the state the first to bar retailers from giving out printed receipts unless a customer requests them.

The proposed measure — Assembly Bill 161 — would require stores to use electronic receipts as the default option. Stores that give out printed receipts without first being asked by the customer could be subject to fines. If passed, the bill could have implications far beyond California, according to experts.

Part of maintaining a successful restaurant operation requires keeping up with ever-changing trends that are driving the market. Just like in any industry, what is working today may change tomorrow, so staying on top of what consumers want is always a challenge.

How scrap from California ended up in a junkyard 8,500 miles away, broken down manually by workers earning $10 a day, is the story of the reshaping of the global garbage and recycling system. For three decades the United States and other industrialized nations have shipped most of their plastic waste overseas — primarily to China, where cheap labor and voracious factories dismantled the scrap and turned it into new plastic goods.

More than half (52 percent) of Americans feel they don’t have access to recycling, particularly young people and low-income families, but that’s not to say they don’t want to recycle.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, Washington, D.C, recently shared the results of its date labeling initiative that narrowed the array of product labels to two options: “best if used by” and “use by.” Since launching in 2017, 87 percent of products now carry the streamlined labels, according to the latest data from consumer packaged goods companies that was released in GMA’s new report, “Best If Clearly Labeled.”