Daniela Sirtori-Cortina | (TNS) Bloomberg News

Toothpaste tubes and other squeezable plastic containers are getting closer to being more sustainable in the U.S. Some 90% of toothpaste tubes on the market are now made in a way that makes them compatible for recycling with HDPE, the same plastic used for products like shampoo bottles, according to research firm Stina Inc.

Overall, 75% of all the plastic squeeze tubes in the U.S. — also used for personal-care products such as conditioner and lotion — now have the correct design. The technical milestone makes it more likely that the tubes U.S. consumers recycle will actually get reclaimed.

That’s rarely a sure thing. In the country’s fragmented system, companies making recyclable products often have to persuade local governments and private companies to accept the items, sort them and turn them into something new. In 2022, Bloomberg Green reported that many sorting centers weren’t accepting toothpaste tubes, in part because the traditional and recyclable versions were too similar. The old version could cause contamination, so it was easier to reject toothpaste tubes across the board.

Colgate, which was among the leaders in developing a recyclable tube made from plastic instead of materials that are more difficult to reclaim, shared its design with competitors starting around 2018. In 2020, the Association of Plastic Recyclers issued guidance to help companies design tubes that are compatible with the HDPE stream.

Since then, companies representing 90% of the U.S. toothpaste market have made the switch — ahead of a commitment to do so by 2025, according to Stina, which runs a tube recyclability project that is funded in part by Colgate. Colgate declined to comment.

Stacey Luddy, a principal at Stina, calls the design switch a “critical milestone.” The organization is working with the companies that turn plastics into feedstocks for new products, as well as those that sort plastics, to confirm that they accept tubes. If they do, municipalities will be more likely to collect them. Consumers should still check if their local recycling programs accept tubes, Luddy says.

There’s still a ways to go. Across the U.S., just 27% of HDPE bottles are collected for recycling, according to 2022 figures compiled by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. But making toothpaste tubes compatible with an existing recycling stream is an important step.

“HDPE bottle recyclers — those turning recyclable bottles into material that can be used in new products — need more HDPE milk jugs, detergent and other bottles put in your recycling bins, so they have the supply they need for current demand,” Luddy says.

Sander Defruyt, lead of the plastics initiative at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, says he appreciates Colgate’s effort to develop a recyclable toothpaste tube and share the design with competitors. But it also highlights the uphill battle for the US’s overall recycling infrastructure, including collection, sorting and reclaiming.

“It does show that making recycling work is a huge effort and all these pieces need to be in place,” Defruyt says. “We need to see much bigger efforts on other solutions, such as scaling reuse.”

___

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Julie Appleby | (TNS) KFF Health News

Until last week, the system that is used to enroll people in federal Affordable Care Act insurance plans inadvertently allowed access by insurance brokers to consumers’ full Social Security numbers, information brokers don’t need.

That raised concerns about the potential for misuse.

The access to policyholders’ personal information was one of the problems cited in a KFF Health News article describing growing complaints about rogue agents enrolling people in ACA coverage, also known as Obamacare, or switching consumers’ plans without their permission in order to garner the commissions. The consumers are often unaware of the changes until they go to use their plan and find their doctors are not in the new plan’s network or their drugs are not covered.

Agent Joshua Brooker told KFF Health News it was relatively easy for agents to access full Social Security numbers through the federal insurance marketplace’s enrollment platforms, warning that “bad eggs now have access to all this private information about an individual.”

On April 1, the morning the article was posted on NPR’s website, Brooker said, he got a call from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services questioning the accuracy of his comments.

A CMS representative told him he was wrong and that the numbers were hidden, Brooker said April 7. “I illustrated that they were not,” he said.

After he showed how the information could be accessed, “the immediate response was a scramble to patch what was acknowledged as ‘problematic,’” Brooker posted to social media late last week.

Brooker has followed the issue closely as chair of a marketplace committee for the National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals, a trade group.

After some phone calls with CMS and other technical experts, Brooker said, the federal site and direct enrollment partner platforms now mask the first six digits of the SSNs.

“It was fixed Wednesday evening,” Brooker told KFF Health News. “This is great news for consumers.”

An April 8 written statement from CMS said the agency places the highest priority on protecting consumer privacy.

“Upon learning of this system vulnerability, CMS took immediate action to reach out to the direct enrollment platform where vulnerability was identified to make sure it was addressed,” wrote Jeff Wu, acting director of the Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight at CMS.

He added that the Social Security numbers were not accessible through routine use of the platform but were in a portion of the site called developer tools. “This issue does not impact healthcare.gov,” Wu wrote.

Brooker’s concern about Social Security numbers centered on access by licensed agents to existing policyholder information though the federal marketplace, not including the parts of healthcare.gov used by consumers, who cannot access anything but their own accounts.

While consumers can enroll on their own, many turn to agents for assistance. There are about 70,000 licensed agents nationwide certified to use the healthcare.gov site or its partner enrollment platforms. They must meet certain training and licensing requirements to do so. Brooker has been quick to say it is a minority of agents who are causing the problem.

But agents increasingly are frustrated by what they describe as a sharp increase during the second half of 2023 and into 2024 of unscrupulous rivals switching people from one plan to another, or at least switching the “agent of record” on the accounts, which directs the commission to the new agent. Wu’s statements have so far not included requested information on the number of complaints about unauthorized switching, or the number of agents who have been sanctioned as a result.

The changes shielding the Social Security numbers are helpful, Brooker said, but won’t necessarily slow unauthorized switching of plans. Rogue agents can still switch an enrollee’s plan with simply their name, date of birth, and state of residence, despite rules that require agents to collect written or recorded consent from consumers before making any changes.

___

(KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2024 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By JESSE BEDAYN and COLLEEN SLEVIN (Associated Press/Report for America)

DENVER (AP) — The couple who owned a Colorado funeral home — where 190 decaying bodies were discovered last year — have been indicted on federal charges for fraudulently obtaining nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds from the U.S. government, according to court documents unsealed Monday.

The new federal charges against Jon and Carie Hallford add to charges in Colorado state court for abusing corpses. The 15 fraud charges filed against each of the Hallfords carry potential penalties of 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, according to the indictment.

The Hallfords didn’t have attorneys listed yet for the federal charges.

Michael Stuzynski, the attorney representing Carie Hallford on state charges declined to comment on the case over the phone. Jon Hallford’s attorney for state charges works for the public defenders office, which does not comment on cases.

The couple have not yet entered pleas to the state’s abuse of corpse charges.

Even before the new indictment was unsealed, public records revealed that the Hallfords had been plagued by debt, facing evictions and lawsuits for unpaid cremations even as they spent lavishly.

The indictment alleges the couple used the $882,300 in pandemic relief funds to buy items for themselves, including cars, vacations, dinners, tuition for their child, cryptocurrency, cosmetic procedures and jewelry. They carried out the fraud and obtained three loans from March 2020 to October 2021, the indictment alleges.

Additionally, the couple took in another $130,000 from families paying for cremations and burial services they never provided, the indictment says.

Previously released court documents from the abuse of corpse case reveals more details about how they spent the money.

They bought a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti that together were worth over $120,000 — enough to cover cremation costs twice over for all of the bodies found in their business’ facility last October, according to previous court testimony from FBI Agent Andrew Cohen.

They also paid for trips to California, Florida and Las Vegas, as well as $31,000 in cryptocurrency, laser body sculpting and shopping at luxury retailers like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., according to court documents.

But they left in their wake a trail of unpaid bills, disgruntled landlords and unsettled business disputes.

Once, the couple claimed to a former landlord that they would settle their rent when they were paid for work they had done for the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the coronavirus pandemic. The business’ website featured logos for FEMA and the Department of Defense.

FEMA has said they did not have any contracts with the funeral home. A defense department database search also showed no contracts with the funeral home.

In 2022, the company failed to pay more than $5,000 in 2022 property taxes at one of their locations, public records show. Then last year, the business was slapped with a $21,000 judgement for not paying for “a couple hundred cremations,” according to public records and Lisa Epps, attorney for the crematory Wilbert Funeral Services.

The new federal charges are the latest example of the owners’ alleged lies, money laundering, forgery and manipulation over the past four years, devastating hundreds of grieving families.

The discovery of the 190 bodies last year, some that had languished since 2019, left families to learn their loved ones weren’t in the ashes they were given by the funeral home. Instead, they were decaying in a bug-infested building about two hours south of Denver.

An investigation by the Associated Press found that the two owners likely sent fake ashes and fabricated cremation records. They appear to have written on death certificates given to families, along with ashes, that the cremations were performed by Wilbert Funeral Services, who denies performing them for the funeral home at that time.

When the decomposing bodies were identified in the funeral home’s facility, families learned that the ashes they held could not have been the remains of their loves ones.

As far back as 2020, there were concerns raised about the business’s improper storage of bodies. But there was no follow-up by regulators, letting the collection of bodies grow to nearly 200 over the following three years.

Colorado has some of the most lax regulations for funeral homes in the country. Those who operate them don’t have to graduate high school, let alone get a degree in mortuary science or pass an exam. The case has pushed lawmakers to introduce bills bringing the rules in line with most other states, even surpassing some.