WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ARCHIVE   BACK TO ARCHIVE INDEX

19 Mar 99 - terminology; exchange; cereal box notebooks; toxics alternati ve; green meetings ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition ---------------------- Note from Tom, Forum moderator: Our e-mail system in my office just changed, so the Forum may look different now. I'm guessing that it will look the same, or better, on most of your e-mail systems, but perhaps weirder on others. It may be necessary now to view it on the full screen for it to look its best. Let me know if you have any problems, and I'll do what I can.... --------------------- >From Yen Chin, Seattle Public Utilities: Of late I've noticed a confusion about waste reduction terms among my colleagues. It seems as though folks have reverted to a binary form of understanding the issue, with the term "recycle" taking on the good connotation. Consequently, when waste paper which had printing on one side was reused to make party decorations, folks described the act as recycling rather than reuse. I think this imprecision in language use goes beyond my workplace and hints at some of the difficulty we face in our educational efforts. Can it be that the term "reuse" contains some negative elements in folks' minds? Or do we simply use words so carelessly that close is good enough? E-mail: Yen (DOT) Chin (AT) ci (DOT) seattle (DOT) wa (DOT) us ---------------------- >From Tom Watson, Waste Prevention Forum moderator: An article by Claudia Deutsch on the front page of the business section in the March 17, 1999 New York Times describes how more and more businesses are reusing and recycling surplus or "waste" materials from other businesses. Some of these businesses are locating their operations in "eco-industrial parks," or eco-parks for short, which are designed to encourage this type of materials trading. The article includes quotes from several national leaders in waste prevention: -- Regarding exchanges that help businesses find or get rid of materials, Julie Rhodes, executive director of the Reuse Development Organization (ReDO), said, "People call them materials exchanges now, not waste exchanges. The whole idea is to think of waste as having value." -- Bill Sloan, chief operating officer of the Millennium Exchange and a ReDO board member, said, "Valuable waste materials should not be consigned to subsidized exchanges whose funding can get cut." The article pointed out that the Environmental Protection Agency lists about 40 government-subsidized waste exchanges, although for-profit exchanges are becoming more common. Sloan's exchange is a for-profit, Web-based exchange. -- Ann Schneider, director of recycling programs at the University of California at Santa Cruz, pointed out, "It's a lot cheaper to transport used lumber from next door than it is to truck wood down from a forest." -- Nancy Hirshberg, director of natural resources for Stonyfield Farm Inc., noted that waste exchanges and eco-parks may not necessarily always be the best solution. "Creating a market for wastes could create a disincentive to eliminate them," she said. ---------------------- >From the EnAct (Environmental Action Program at the University of Michigan) website (thanks to Pauh Wang and Alexandra Scott for pointing this out): The EnAct 100% Recycled Notebook program seeks to reuse material that would otherwise go to waste. We do this by collecting materials from all across campus and using them to create our recycled notebooks. The covers of the notebooks, made from cereal boxes, come from the residence hall cafeterias. The pages are made from discarded computer paper of which only one side has been used. The group has already produced hundreds of notebooks.... Though we're extremely proud of the project and its success, we can't claim the idea as our own. Yes, independently, a bunch of us were doing the same thing on a much smaller scale -- reusing coursepacks, handing in homework on scrap paper. Then, in the fall of 1996, the idea came to us formally through some networking with an East Coast university. We recruited an office or two to get paper, and saved our own cereal boxes. An internal printing source took pity on us and ground out 50 or so of the notebooks (to test the waters with). The notebooks were an instant success with the members of EnAct, and thus, the 100% Recycled Notebook Project was born. Sure, a bunch of tree-huggers would eat these up, but what about the rest of the University? We found more offices. We got a dorm or two to donate the used cereal boxes. And before we knew it, the fall 1997 Book Rush was upon us. 150 notebooks flew off our booth set up in the Student Union, and into the hands of students. In less than 3 years, EnAct's 100% Recycled Notebook Project has gone from a single (cherished...it' on exhibit in our office) Rice Krispies-covered prototype to a 500-notebook drive. We secured a deal with a campus bookstore, and that has helped us to grow by about 50-100 notebooks every semester. With the launch of this website, we are also very excited to embark on a mail order program. Our future plans for the Notebook Project include 100% Recycled notepads, as well as other 100% Recycled (Homemade) Office Supplies. We are also expanding our sales program to include larger entities, for example, the University's Conferences and Seminars department. Your group could start a recycled notebook project too! If you'd like information on how to get started, contact: The 100% Recycled Notebook Project, EnAct, 4168 Michigan Union, 530 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1360. Phone: 734-647-9189. E-mail: recycled [DOT] notebooks [AT] umich [DOT] edu To see a picture of these notebooks or for information on how to order one, see the EnAct website at: http://www.umich.edu/~enact/notebooks.html The notebooks cost $2.50 apiece if you order 1 or 2, and $2.00 apiece if you order 3 or more. You can request a certain type of cereal box for the cover, but it's not guaranteed that you will receive your selection. --------------------- Excerpted from a March 14, 1999 article by John Cushman Jr. in the New York Times: Government scientists have found that the harmless natural oil that gives peaches their perfume also kills fungus and other pests in the soil and could replace methyl bromide, a widely-used pesticide that is toxic to people and also damages the planet's protective ozone layer. Kert Davies, a researcher at the Environmental Working Group, which lobbies against pesticide use, said that the burgeoning research into natural alternatives to synthetic chemicals has broad implications for agriculture. The research on natural alternatives to methyl bromide is being done at the U.S. Agricultural Research Service's Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia. ---------------------- >From the Green Hotels Association website (noted in an article in the March 1999 Association of Oregon Recyclers newsletter): The website of the Green Hotels Association includes a Meeting Planner's Questionnaire at: http://greenhotels.com/question.htm On this web page, scroll down to find the questionnaire, which has many waste prevention ideas that meeting facilities, or meeting planners, may want to consider. - end -