With the growing popularity of disposable e-cigarettes, communities across the U.S. are confronting a new vaping problem: how to safely get rid of millions of small, battery-powered devices that are considered hazardous waste. For years, the debate surrounding vaping largely centered on its risks for high school and middle school students enticed by flavors like gummy bear, lemonade and watermelon. But the recent shift toward e-cigarettes that can’t be refilled has created a new environmental dilemma. The devices, which contain nicotine, lithium and other metals, cannot be reused or recycled. Under federal environmental law, they also aren’t supposed to go in [...]

ERIE, Kan.— As Chicago studies whether to become the first big city to open a municipally-owned grocery store, it will be looking to places like this city of 1,000 people for tips on how to do it. At the moment, things aren’t going especially well. Erie Market, which the city took over in 2021, is losing money almost every month amid stiff competition from a Walmart 15 miles away and a Dollar General across the street. The store has slashed prices, cleared the shelves of expired items and put in a salad bar to try to bring more people through the [...]

The City of Valley Center is considering whether to start its own electric utility. The city council on Oct. 17 heard the report of a nearly year-long study into the initiative to possibly replace Evergy. ... a municipal electric utility is possible. However, city customers likely would pay slightly higher rates than Evergy's rates in the first few years before city rates became lower than Evergy. That's because the city could face large upfront system acquisition costs coupled with operations and maintenance. Source: Ark Valley News

The City of Lawrence has launched an online form to report new homeless campsites around the city, which was first announced at Tuesday’s Lawrence City Commission meeting. According to a release from the city, the form is intended to be used by community members who are “aware of a person who is currently camping and may need shelter.” The form asks respondents to provide the closest available address to the location, the date they first noticed the campsite and a description of the campsite and its occupants. The release says city staff will then go to the area indicated on the form to [...]

As a steering committee works to develop new rules for how Lawrence should grow, one of the big questions the group has for the public is how much parking space new developments should have to provide. More specifically, the Land Development Code Steering Committee decided at its meeting on Thursday that it wants to see what members of the public think about eliminating minimum and maximum parking requirements for new residential development entirely, and mandating only a maximum amount of parking space for commercial and industrial development. Source: LJWorld