Waste and Recycling

Dallas Settles With the Waste Industry, Killing Flow Control Once and For All

The final chapter appears to have been inked in the long, sorry saga of flow control, a moneymaking scheme that placed City Hall's imprimatur on the idea that southern Dallas isn't much more than a trash receptacle for the rest of the city. This week U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor entered his fi ... More >>

When Should Dallas Require Apartments to Recycle? There's Still Some Debate About That.

When city staff first unveiled their vision to transform Dallas into a "zero waste" city by 2040, there was immediate pushback. No one quibbled with the goal of waste reduction, but pretty much everyone quibbled with the way the city should get there. Environmentalists critiqued the plan for puttin ... More >>

Disappearing Ink

What will happen to all the books?

Judge Halts Dallas' Flow Control Plan, Basically Calls City Hall a Bunch of Liars

A federal judge has ruled that the City of Dallas pretty much lied about every single aspect of its so-called "flow-control" trash program. Judge Reed O'Connor granted a permanent injunction against a new city ordinance that would have forced commercial haulers to take all their trash to the city- ... More >>

City Council Dismisses Concerns About Burning Garbage, Adopts Long-Term Plan

Many people were not happy when the city unveiled its long-term solid waste management plan. It's goal of achieving zero waste by 2040 was admirable enough, but the plan pushed consideration of such measures as a plastic bag ban, mandatory recycling and increased composting efforts out a decade or m ... More >>

Environmentalists to City: Your Long-Term Trash Plan is a Burning Pile of Garbage

On Tuesday, you saw a glimpse of Dallas' garbage future. The city's long-term solid waste plan had some relatively progressive ideas -- mandatory recycling, a plastic bag ban and "zero waste," for example -- but those won't even be up for actual discussion for another couple of decades. Once the ide ... More >>

Plastic Bag Bans and Mandatory Recycling: A Glimpse into Dallas' Trash Future

Best case scenario: The world's largest retailer builds a spaceship that allows humanity to flee a trash-choked planet and spend several centuries growing ever fatter and lazier on an interstellar cruise, unwitting captives to a self-aware computer, until an oddly adorable trash-compacting robot uns ... More >>

Waste Management Association Sues City Over "Anti-Free Enterprise" Flow Control Ordinance

​Saw this one coming; so too did the city council. After all, in mid-September the council met behind closed doors with city attorneys to review "legal issues regarding proposed resource flow control ordinance" -- which, as I am sure you recall, is the ordinance directing all solid waste collecte ... More >>

Make the Neighbors Green with Envy

Dallas Should Go With the Flow Control

The sweet smell of money covers up garbage's stink.

So, Wait, We Weren't Supposed to Be Recycling Cartons? But Now We Can? Good to Know.

Via.No?​Finally, a press release from Dallas City Hall that settles a long-simmering argument at my house: "Dallas becomes first major Texas city to add cartons to the list of acceptable recycling items." Son. Of. A. Clearly, I was wrong. Sorry, honey. My apologies. Never shoulda been putting thos ... More >>

Before the Council Talks Trash This Morning ...

​No doubt most of you aren't all that concerned where your garbage gets dumped, so long as it's picked up and hauled off on time. That said, the subject's slowly but surely becoming a hot topic at City Hall, as City Manager Mary Suhm and Sanitation Services Director Mary Nix make their solid-waste ... More >>

Talking Trash With the City Manager As She Looks At Ways to Generate Additional Revenue

​In a few weeks, Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm will present to the city council some revenue-generating brainstorms she hopes could offset some of this year's $60-million-and-maybe-more budget shortfall. Among her proposals, she tells Unfair Park, will be one familiar to anyone paying attention la ... More >>

Solid Waste-rs Tell Caraway They Really Don't Want to Be Told Where to Dump Trash

​Last June, we took a look at some moneymaking brainstorms Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm presented to the city council, which Suhm hoped would offset some of the $131-million budget shortfall with which she was faced at the time. Among them was one in particular that didn't get very far, or so it ... More >>

Walk This Green Way

Pile On Loads of Earthy Fun

Come for the Super Bowl. Stay for the Skiing.

Photos by Justin TerveenI texted Justin shortly past 1 a.m.: "You getting this?" Silly me. He was at Fair Park at that very moment, snapping away. For hi-res versions, and time-lapse video, go here.​Seven hours later and ... impressive. Unless you're, say, Sports Guy Bill Simmons, who shoots up th ... More >>

Should Garbage Collectors Be Allowed to Live?

Trash and Culture on the Agenda at City Hall

​[Editor's note: Well, look who's returned to Unfair Park, none other than former Girl on Top Andrea Grimes. And, for some reason, she's decided to reintroduce herself with ... a liveblog from the Quality of Life Committee meeting at Dallas City Hall, where they're covering big changes in code com ... More >>

Clearly, the City's Still Working Out the Kinks on Its Trash, Recycling Service

​Daniel's working on a OneDAY Dallas follow -- he's been hearing, ya know, things about the rest of the city's switch to weekly garbage and recycling pick-up. There have been "issues." Forthcoming. Till then, then, here's a just-sent tweet from City Hall concerning one particular mix-up. Another " ... More >>

If Your Trash Isn't Getting Picked Up, City Says: Well, It Could Have Been Worse

​Like Robert said, we were already working on a OneDAY Dallas follow-up post even before Dallas Sanitization Services's errant tweet, which was promptly deleted (and referenced later) following its posting on Unfair Park. First, let's address that issue before jumping into the larger OneDAY trash ... More >>

In Stitches

Power House

What Happens When You Kill Your TV

Kimberly ThorpeThere are about 219 Victory Park jokes to be had here. So, have at it.At noon today in Victory Park, a group of enviro-activists dressed for Halloween dropped to the concrete to rather dramatically mark the end of analog television. The switch from analog to digital television was sup ... More >>

Saving The Planet, One Party At A Time

Care for a complimentary cocktail and appetizer? State and Allen Lounge will offer free drinks and hors d'oeuvres from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. today. There's a catch: you may need an invitation--we've never been certain after carelessly tossing out the mailer--and you have to listen to a spiel about ... More >>

Let's Talk Trash For a Second

Last night, the missus wondered why we received a postcard from the city's Sanitation Services Department inviting us to a "community meeting" with our city council member this Saturday to discuss garbage collection. "Um," I told her, "probably because they want to tell us that starting in February, ... More >>

Trash Ain't Nothin' but Cash

Tom Kemper Goes Green, Makes Green

Hunting Down the Garbage Some Sanitation Workers Contend With

Scrappy Doo

Booker T. students junk up a lobby

A Trashy Tale

Rent By the Hour

Best Eco-Products

Green Living

Down in the Dump

City's new recycling center just can't seem to master recycling

Letters

Letters from the issue of March 20.

Garbage by Numbers

City's recycling rate takes a dive

Cash for Trash

The city's new recycling center is up and running, sort of

Law? What Law?

Dallas cops don't need no stinking law

Smells Funny

So the mayor thinks the recycling program is trash? Hate to say we told you so.

Raise Taxes Now

Plus: Fast and Dumb, Warped Criticism, Recycling Works

Trashy Questions

City auditors take a belated look at Dallas' recycling program

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Why Dallas' recycling program is a $17 million joke

Best children's art school

J's Art Studio

Dumped on

Mistrust fuels McKinney's fight against plans for a landfill

Trashy behavior

Dallas gets blamed for doing too little to stop an illegal dump from choking a neighborhood

Dumped On

How greedy property owners and careless bureaucrats let a massive illegal landfill grow in the back yard of a black Dallas neighborhood

Ill Wind Blowing

Texas Industries wants permission to burn 270,000 tons of hazardous waste each year at a concrete plant 30 miles from Dallas. That would make it the nation's largest incinerator of toxic waste. Despite stunning ignorance about what this will do to your he

Hot Dish

Letters

Spouting rubbish

Dallas has run out of recycling excuses