WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ARCHIVE   BACK TO ARCHIVE INDEX

24 Mar 99 - restroom towels; office paper; will the bride wear green? ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition --------------------- The first four postings are in response to the recent postings on reducing paper towel waste in restrooms. -------------------- >From Jesse White, Resource Management Group, Tallevast FL: I was involved with a U.S. Postal Service project to switch to a high post-consumer content hand towel made (in part) from recycled mail. It was an attempt to close the loop, of sorts. We found that the new towels, with recycled mail content, were of lower quality than the towels we had been using. This meant that people used more towels and the maintenance department would use a special option on the towel dispensers that allowed them to load two rolls into the dispenser at the same time and feed them through simultaneously to offer patrons a "double sheet." The increased usage also increased labor associated with re-loading the dispensers, and reordering materials. After six months, we stopped the pilot because the new towel increased overall expense, lowered customer satisfaction, and did not meet the goal of waste reduction. During this process, we looked at a lot of towel products and towel dispenser products. Our next trial, if I can convince management, will be with a slightly higher basis weight towel, a decently textured sheet finish, a metered dispenser (one that gives out a set length of towel for each "pull"), and a high post-consumer content (though not necessarily mail). E-mail: Jessewhite [AT] aol [DOT] com ------------------- >From David Cera, Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, St. Paul, MN: What about good old fashioned rolls of cloth towels that are washed and reused? A few years back our building management tried to replace our cloth towels with paper. We complained, and within a short period of time, had our cloth towel rolls back. E-mail: david (DOT) cera (AT) moea (DOT) state (DOT) mn (DOT) us ------------------- >From Susan Kinsella, Susan Kinsella & Associates, Novato, CA: When Nancy VandenBerg and I did a buy-recycled and source reduction procurement project in Alameda County in 1995-1996, Nancy researched the waste reduction opportunities involved in switching from single- or multi-fold towels to roll towels. Using calculation figures supplied by Scott and Wisconsin Tissue, she used packaging and sizes from the then-current Alameda County and Oakland paper towel specifications and developed a table that calculated the paper saved, plus packaging waste and labor cost savings. In her intro, she explains, "People use more folded towels than roll varieties because: They pull folded towels out of dispensers by the handful, they rarely unfold towels before using them and they take towels to their desks to mop up spills. Dispensers control the amount of paper for roll towels and they are not as wide as folded towels, so less paper is used per 'handwipe.' By changing from folded towels to roll towels, you can reduce waste 25% to 35% in toweling alone. There are packaging, cost and labor savings as well. . . . Dispensers that hold 800-feet rolls as well as stub rolls (partially used rolls) are the most cost-effective in maintenance terms." I can fax the table to people if they want it. The summary is: "In busy public restrooms, maintenance staff put 500 folded towels (single fold or multi-fold) into each dispenser every day. That is 2,500 towels per 5-day week or 130,000 towels (32.5 cases) per dispenser per year. In our example, 1,800 cases will serve 55.3 folded towel dispensers each year or 3,600,000 people who dry their hands once. If maintenance staff used 800-foot roll towels to serve the same number of people at the same rate, they would fill dispensers 2.4 times per week and use just under 1,256 rolls (20.8 cases) per year. With the factors in our example, one folded towel dispenser serves 65,000 pairs of hands per year while one roll towel dispenser serves 156,000 pairs of hands during the same time." Nancy found that roll towels saved 27-34% of the paper used for folded towels, saved 80% of the packaging, and saved 58% on labor costs. Roll towels were also less expensive (comparisons ran 24-39% less expensive, depending on roll size and vendor), required less maintenance, and were more compact, saving storage space. She noted that nearly all paper towel vendors have calculation models through which you can run stats based on your organization's own usage patterns. E-mail: SEEK251 [ AT ] aol [ DOT ] com -------------------- >From Beth Eckl, Alameda County General Services Agency, Oakland, CA: (Note from Tom: I believe the study Beth describes here is the same one that Susan describes above.) There are several sources for documented savings by switching from folded towels to roll paper towels. The first resource is the paper towel vendors themselves. They know these savings well. Our county also studied the savings in an in-house test at eleven locations over 8 months. Our numbers are higher than other reports so I'll give a summary of the ranges one might expect. Also, a Alameda County publication called "Resourceful Purchasing" has a chapter outlining the savings. If you would like more information, let me know. Weight of paper reduced: 25-78%. Cost of Paper reduced: 49-78%. Labor time reduced to replace towels: 80-90%. Our janitorial staff can not wait for this switch! Our bid goes out next week. Our baseline data says we use about 200,000 pounds of towels annually so we will be able to measure results. E-mail: eeckl [AT] co [DOT] alameda [DOT] ca [DOT] us ------------------- >From Naomi Friedman, National Association of Counties, Washington, DC, responding to the recent postings about reducing office paper: I think that computers have actually increased our use of paper. In many instances, people e-mail things to a large group, and each individual ends up printing off their own copy. In instances where printers are single-sided, this ends up creating a lot more paper waste then double-sided photocopying of a document. If your office has single-sided printers, I would recommend that you photo-copy (double-sided) and distribute medium and long length documents that you know most folks are going to end up printing We have tried e-mailing documents, and then asking folks if they want their own complete copy to get a double-sided version from so and so. E-mail does not always save paper. Also, I think dual-drawer printers where draft paper (printed on only one side) can be used in one drawer would save tons of paper. E-mail: NFRIEDMA ( AT ) naco ( DOT ) org ------------------ >From Barbara Frierson, City of Alameda Public Works, Alameda, CA, responding to the 3/23/99 posting seeking ideas for a "cheap, easy, environmentally light wedding reception": A perhaps only half-in-jest response: Print the invitations on coated cover stock paper; require that the guests bring the invitation to gain admittance; serve non-runny finger foods that can rest daintily on the invitation in each guest's hand during the reception; collect and shred the invitations for composting at your leisure after the honeymoon... I personally would rent plates and glasses and let the rental company do the dishes -- This IS probably a once-in-a-lifetime event, after all! E-mail: bfrierso [ AT ] ci [ DOT ] alameda [ DOT ] ca [ DOT ] us - end -