A tangle of glass and plastic beverage bottles at a Santa Monica recycling site. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, via Shutterstock)After a nice dinner with your loved ones, make sure to keep the wine and spirit containers alongside the recyclable bottles. The state Senate passed Senate Bill 1013 on a 39-0 vote and sent it to the Assembly just before lawmakers left for their summer recess.
Crushed containers await recycling at a California facility. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)OPINION: The fact of the matter is that recycling rates are falling in California. For the first time in a decade, the percentage of beverage containers being recycled has dropped below 80 percent. The decline means that about 1.7 million containers that five years ago were being recycled are today being buried in landfills or, worse, tossed aside as litter.
A cell block at Folsom Prison. Photo: Grace2GrowThe stories behind Gov. Jerry Brown’s nine recent sentence commutations reveal tangled lives marked by murder, abuse, addiction and determined efforts by criminals — usually over decades — to turn their lives around. Here are their stories.