Page 3 - Business Facts

The US's biggest export to China for the last 5 years has been trash!

This might sound strange, but one of the big destinations of the recycling you take out every week don’t all go to a magic recycling plant that turns them into something else. A good chunk of it is actually exported to China.

The industry is actually in crisis, despite the fact that the market for recyclables to China has doubled since 2006. This is because China has recently passed a ban on the importation of certain types of solid waste, including unwashed plastics.

The big problem seems to be in the trash sorting. Because it’s so labor intensive, the US hasn't developed good processes for sorting through trash. The Chinese are cracking down on dangerous stuff being in the piles of trash. For example, a single syringe can get an entire shipment rejected as medical waste.

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American Airlines just hired their first new flight attendant since 9/11!

As part of a new union contract, American Airlines offered an early retirement incentive to flight attendants last year. 2000 people took that offer, leading to American offering 1500 new job openings.

American was able to be selective, as 24,000 people applied for the job. The news is good not just for aspiring flight attendants, but also for the others that remained. A lot of existing flight attendants were unable to rise up the ranks, but now with new people in, that will be possible.

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There's an open-source alternative for Coke!

Have you ever had a can of Coke and thought that it would taste better if it was open source? No? Well, some people have and they have created the world's first "open source" cola. And it's on version 1.1.3

Anybody can make the drink, modify and improve on it as they see fit, as long as the recipe is made public under the GNU General Public License. However, recipes are not copyrightable, so the legal basis for that premise is untested.

Originally released as a promotional tool to explain open source software, the drink became a success and the company that made it sold 150,000 cans, and the creators became better known for the cola than for the software they were trying to promote!

(Source)

If you buy something from Zappos on a Leap Day, you have until the next Leap Day to return it!

Zappos is a company known for being unique and weird in ways that are very good for costumers. For example, they have free returns for shoes you buy and you can return them up to a year later.

However, in their usual Zappos way, they have a really funny clause for people who buy stuff on February 29th. According to their website, you have until the next February 29th to return the shoes you bought! How’s that for a generous return policy.

(Source)

America spends $34mil a year of taxpayer money to broadcast TV and radio to Cuba from Miami, FL.

Over the past two decades, the U.S. Government has spent some $500 million to beam news and commentary with an anti-Castro bent into Cuba. But the programming hasn't exactly been a ratings success. The Cuban government controls all media on the island and views the broadcasts as enemy propaganda, so it jams the signals.

The Miami-based stations, Radio and TV Marti, have spent still more money trying to overcome this by transmitting from moving airplanes, but the broadcasts reach less than 1 percent of Cuba’s 11 million residents, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Meanwhile, hours and hours of subversive American programming fill Cuba’s airwaves each day, attracting millions of viewers on the island with shows like “Desperate Housewives,” “Friends” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

How do they get there? They’re broadcast by Cuba’s own communist government. With Radio and TV Marti and it's $34-million annual budget facing growing skepticism in Congress, the Miami stations’ defenders insist they’re helping to break the Cuban government’s monopoly on information. But while Cuba’s programming is politically biased and often tedious, it’s hardly a drab, droning monotony of pro-Castro propaganda.

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