Up To Snuff? The New York Times reports on a study jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities that found that just six nations -- headed by New Zealand and followed by five from northern Europe -- achieved 85% or better success in meeting a set of environmental goals. Among the goals cited in the study were clean drinking water, low ozone levels, sustainable fisheries and low emissions of greenhouse gases.

The United States ranked 28th, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea.

TRI, TRI Again: Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran has joined 11 of his counterparts from other states in calling for the U.S. EPA to withdraw a proposal that would reduce the amount of information industrial facilities are required to report to the public about their toxic chemical releases.

In its article on Curran´s announcement, the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel notes that Congress established the Toxics Release Inventory in response to the 1984 deadly release of toxic chemicals at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India. Since the TRI got rolling in 1987, U.S. industrial facilities have been required to report information on their toxic releases to the EPA annually. The current proposal would reduce the reporting-frequency requirement to once every two years, among other industry-friendly provisions.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial yesterday denouncing this latest EPA Toxics Release Inventory proposal.

Friendly Fire: A gaggle of former EPA bosses last week criticized the Bush administration´s climate change policy, and according to this Houston Chronicle editorial, "there´s little sign their message got through." A couple factors elevate this story above run-of-the-mill White House bashing. As reported here by the Associated Press, the former agency chiefs were gathered in Washington for an EPA symposium celebrating the agency´s 35th anniversary; and five of the six who spoke out served as EPA administrators during Republican presidential administrations.

In a similar vein, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is taking a beating from greenies in her state who claim she is reneging on campaign pledges she made three years ago to cut mercury releases from Michigan power plants. You can read the Detroit Free Press´s rundown of the issue here.

More Backpedaling: The state of Virginia appears to be aboard the sprinting-backward bandwagon as well, this time in regard to recycling. The Associated Press reports that the Old Dominion´s recycling rate has plummeted three straight years, and get this: One of the measures the Virginia legislature is considering to solve the problem is lowering the state´s mandatory recycling rate for municipalities from 25% to 15%.

We´ll close today with this latest entry in our ongoing series of colorful-trash-guy profiles. Today´s character is Phillip Bailey, who collects garbage for Waste Management in Augusta, Mich. Among Bailey´s quirks, he says he likes to dress up as a clown for work on Halloween, and that when he finds a kid´s Big Wheel or similar riding toy in the trash, he takes it for a spin. Also, he´s highly skilled at hand-to-hand combat with raccoons and opossums. All in a day´s play.

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.