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15 Dec 99 - statistics; packaging and the enviro-police; workshop; junk mail; CD-ROMs ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- Excerpted from a message from Steve Apotheker, Metro Waste Reduction Division, Portland, OR (forwarded by Meg Lynch): The Environmental Protection Agency's first National Source Reduction Characterization Report for Municipal Solid Waste in the U.S., published in November, 1999, has been posted on the Internet. Go to: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/sourcepubs.htm Then scroll down to find the publication (the list is alphabetical). The document is in PDF ("portable document format"). The report indicates national source reduction of about 10 percent for 1996, based on a measurement methodology developed by the Tellus Institute. However, some materials were found to be source reduced, whereas others experienced source expansion, such as old corrugated cardboard (OCC). --------------------- Excerpted from a 10/15/99 column by Greg Erickson in Packaging Network, an Internet newsletter for the packaging industry (Erickson, a former editor of Packaging magazine, has been covering the industry for many years): Last weekend I purchased a carton of Mrs. Paul's Grilled Fillets in garlic butter. Only when I got the package home did I notice a surprising message on the front. "New!" it read. "Space Saver Box. Less Packaging. Same Amount of Product." Son of a gun, I said to myself, when was the last time you saw that kind of sell copy on a container of any kind? To my knowledge, it had been years. The carton measured 5-1/2 by 7-1/2 by 1-inch. Inside it were two plastic-film-wrapped fillets taking up half the available volume. The carton could have been reduced in size even farther, but that would have made it so small that there would have been no room on it for cooking instructions or serving suggestions. Good for Mrs. Paul's Kitchens! I exclaimed inwardly. Source reduction makes perfect sense from the standpoints of the packager, whose costs might be reduced as a result, the consumer, who has a bit less to throw away, and the trash hauler, whose truck fills up less frequently. But yikes! I added. Does Mrs. Paul's know something other packagers don't? After more than half a decade of pretty much ignoring the whole issue of municipal solid waste, are consumers again getting the feeling that packaging is spiraling out of control? I don't think so... yet. But the so-called "trash crisis" is not dead. Rather, it is, as they say in the television business, on hiatus. Trust me. >From out of the blue a few months ago came a real jolt to my system via Parade magazine. After a long silence on the subject by all media, the national weekly ran a cover story on household trash. Inside were tired old photos of supposedly overflowing landfills, the infamous garbage barge and the once-ubiquitous University of Arizona "garbologist" William Rathje. The deja-vu of it hit me like an empty beer bottle on the back of the neck. Perhaps you're puzzled by my reaction. Perhaps you've forgotten what the trash issue was all about from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Maybe you weren't in packaging when zealots from academia, government and the popular press on an almost daily basis attacked packaging for being a hateful environmental threat. Maybe you shrugged off movements in several states to ban forms of packaging that had been judged irresponsible. And you might not remember how packaging-material research & development screeched to a near standstill as suppliers and users poured all their energy and money into keeping wrong-headed critics at bay. I was there. I reported on it monthly as a journalist. Back then, I felt that the field I covered was despised, besieged. I'm not looking forward to a new round of package-bashing. But it's probably coming. When? My guess: soon after the U.S. economy takes a significant downward turn and consumers start pinching their tax pennies. They're not doing that now, in this boom period, but booms don't last forever. You'd better be ready when the enviro-police come knocking. It's happening in Europe right now, big time. Take a tip from Mrs. Paul's and rethink your packaging with an eye to its environmental impact. Have something on the drawing board that you can use to prove you haven't had your head in the sand. Just a little something else to keep you awake at night as Y2K approaches. The full article is at: http://www.packagingnetwork.com/content/news/article.asp?DocID={9C2CF113-8249-11D3-9A67-00A0C9C83AFB}&Bucket=Shelf+Presence+with+Greg+Erickson -------------------- Excerpted from a press release from the Center for Energy & Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa: A half-day workshop called "Waste Reduction: Addressing the Overlooked 'R,'" will be held March 28, 2000, in Hills, NE, just outside Omaha. The workshop is designed specifically for recycling coordinators, extension specialists, naturalists and other adult educators who teach about environmental concerns. Workshop participants will learn innovative ways to teach about waste reduction, discover resources that can help citizens consume less, and discuss barriers and benefits to educating about waste reduction and sustainable consumption. Participants will receive "Waste Reduction: Addressing the Overlooked 'R,'" a curriculum packet for use with adult audiences. The packet contains six lesson plans, more than 35 overhead and handout masters, a six-page list of resources, and facts on waste, recycling, and sustainable consumption. Susan Salterberg, author of the curriculum packet, will lead the workshop. She is program manager of Simple Living Initiatives, a project of the Center for Energy & Environmental Education at the University of Northern Iowa. The workshop will run from 9-12:30. It's sponsored by the Nebraska State Recycling Association (NSRA), U.S. EPA Region 7, and the Center for Energy & Environmental Education at UNI. For more information, contact Susan Salterberg at 319/498-4516 or by e-mail at ssalter (A T) netins (D O T) net or call Denise Bohlsen, NSRA, at 402/444-4188. -------------------- Link to a 12/8/99 article in the Washington Post on reducing junk mail, written by consumer columnist Don Oldenburg (the article includes a mention of the National Waste Prevention Coalition's new "Reduce Business Junk Mail" website): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-12/08/115l-120899-idx.html --------------------- >From Bill Smith, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA: Here's the solution to the problem of unwanted promotional CD-ROMs: http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/tree/christma.html - end -