A new state law will allow streamlined permitting for new and advanced technology businesses, including advanced recycling operations.   Advanced recycling is an emerging industry that allows for the recycling of all plastics – many that are currently hard to recycle or are not recycled at all. Advanced recycling and recovery facilities can process post-use plastics into new plastics and chemicals, raw materials for manufacturing, and transportation fuels that have lower emissions than conventional fuels. Converting these resources into new materials and fuels complements existing mechanical recycling and reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills.  Act 127 of 2020 will take effect in late January.

 A Bellefonte man has been charged with possession of explosive devices.  The Justice Department says 23-year-old Mitchell Ocker-Mullen was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of five explosive devices.  The three-count indictment alleges that Ocker-Mullen received and possessed five grenades in October. The indictment also alleges that Ocker-Milton was prohibited from possessing the explosives because he had been previously convicted of a felony offense in Centre County. Ocker-Mullen was not licensed to possess the grenades and had not registered the explosives in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.

Shipping pallets — often used as display platforms in retail settings or seen as raw material for household projects — were responsible for sending more than 30,000 people to the U.S. Hospital emergency rooms over a recent five-year period, according to a new study.  With nearly 2 billion wooden pallets in use at any given time in the United States, they are indispensable components of domestic supply chains. But they present unique hazards when used by retailers and homeowners for unintended purposes, according to researcher Judd Michael, Penn State Nationwide Insurance Professor of Agricultural Safety and Health.  The lower extremities were the most often injured body parts in pallet-related accidents.