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15 Nov 99 - Dryel; disposable cell phone; car battery charger; family size Coke ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- >From a tip from Christine McCoy, National Recycling Coalition, Alexandria, VA: A new Procter & Gamble product, Dryel, has waste prevention implications. This is a laundry product designed to allow people to clean clothes at home that are labeled "dry clean only." It includes a stain removing chemical, a special bag that you place the article of clothing in, and a treated cloth that you put in the bag also. Then you put the bag in your dryer. For more information, see Procter & Gamble's Dryel website: http://www.dryel.com/usa/index.shtml This website is very difficult to navigate, but if you're patient you can eventually find some information. The Dryel website includes these questions and answers, among others (all are written by Procter & Gamble): "Q. Aren't you concerned about the solid waste your product will produce? A. The Dryel Bag is designed for multiple uses (up to 20 cycles). To reduce waste, we've designed a consumer-friendly refill that uses 49 percent less packaging than the primary kit and is made from 100 percent recycled fiber. We've also found that many consumers have used the bag for trash once they have completed their 20 loads. Q. Is Dryel safe for the environment? A. Dryel uses biodegradable cleaning agents. The dryer bag is reusable and the refill packaging is made from 100 percent recycled paperboard. The plastic lid is also made from 100 percent recycled plastic (PET). Q. Will Dryel replace dry cleaning? A. No. Dryel is a complement, not a replacement to dry cleaning. In fact, we suggest that you take heavily-soiled garments to a commercial dry cleaner." Note from Tom: If this product reduces the number of times that people have their clothes cleaned at a traditional dry cleaner (most dry cleaners use the toxic percloroethylene), it could be a good thing. This product could add more solid waste, however. --------------------- Excerpted from an article by Teresa Riordan in the 11/8/99 New York Times (an 11/12/99 posting referred to this patent, but did not have many details): DISPOSABLE CELL PHONE Randice-Lisa Altschul, a full-time inventor in Cliffside Park, NJ, has patented a technology that she says can be used to manufacture cellular phones so inexpensively that they could be sold for a fixed amount of air time, then tossed in the garbage once their minutes have been used up. Patent 5,965,848 was granted in October to Altschul and Lee Volte, a former executive at the toy maker Tyco. Altschul has invented several games and toys. "The greatest asset I have over everyone else in that business (electronics) is my toy mentality," she said. "An engineer's mentality is to make something last, to make it durable. A toy's life span is about an hour, then the kid throws it away. You get it, you play with it and - boom - it's gone." She said her phone, which wouldn't require any contracts or billing agreements, would appeal primarily to children, to harried mothers and to travelers who don't want to have to worry about keeping track of yet another expensive electronic device. She estimates that a phone with 60 minutes of air time could be produced for about $14 and would retail for about $20 - perhaps not through normal retail channels, but as a marketing gimmick. A company could sell the phone at cost with its logo on it. The phone, powered by a six-volt battery, works for outgoing calls only, and it doesn't have a liquid crystal display. Note from Tom: This article about the disposable cell phone and its inventor was 24 paragraphs long, but it made no mention of waste issues. -------------------- >From Shirley Shimada, King County Solid Waste Advisory Committee, Seattle, WA: I just read a short article about this car battery charger that works by plugging into the lighter of the car. It all sounds marvelous until you get to the line that says "It's disposable". So I checked out the web site - http://www.startmeup.com - and found that it does not contain "lead, mercury or cadmium," but does not list what it has. I also noticed that the article lists the charger as costing "only $20" but the website says "$29.95 plus shipping and handling ($6.95)," hardly $20! There's a phone number - 888-StartMe - that I haven't called yet to ask what is in it and why they don't make it returnable when it runs out of power. Thought you'd want to know about another disposable. E-mail: shirl (AT) u (DOT) washington (DOT) edu --------------------- Link to an article in The Onion satirical newspaper, Madison, WI (forwarded to the GreenYes listserv by Michael Blake; forwarded to us by Bill Reed): COCA-COLA'S NEW MARKETING STRATEGY http://www.theonion.com/onion3011/cola.html - end -