The Issue — July 2026
We cover the paperwork, the loopholes, and the driveway-level reality of household hazardous waste — from the smoke detector nobody wants to touch to a garage full of half-used paint. Reported from Miami, with dispatches from the cities where the rules read differently.
Basements in Bridgeport and garages in Beverly are full of decades-old solvents. The city has a system for this, but almost nobody uses it correctly on the first try. We walked through it with an inspector.
You can't drive a can of thinner across three boroughs on the subway. So what do you actually do with it? A field guide for renters.
SEMCOG's calendar, EGLE's forms, and the three questions that will tell you whether your problem is actually a problem.
A garage in Ahwatukee hits interior temperatures north of 140°F in July. That changes what you can leave sitting on a shelf, and for how long.
The internet keeps telling people to pour latex down the drain. Municipal wastewater managers keep telling them not to. Who's right, and what to actually do.
Ionization detectors contain a tiny amount of americium-241. That's why your recycling center refuses them. Here's the actual disposal path.