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21 Jan 00 - links; Minn. campaign; fact sheets; junk mail; unit pricing; Internet; rants; tires ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- >From Ellen Harrison, Cornell Waste Management Institute, Ithaca, NY: I am working with a group here at Cornell University on a series of TV shows for the local PBS station called "Greener at Home." These will be half-hour programs on six different topics, focusing on helping householders overcome barriers to implementing environmentally sound behavior. I am involved in the one on waste management, which will highlight reduction and home composting. As part of the project, we are also providing an Internet website on which we want to link to other resources/sites. We are also putting some items in local libraries and Extension offices. I would like to link to some good and practical sites on environmental shopping, junk mail reduction instructions, "how to" home composting, and other helpful "how to" waste reduction sites. If anyone has any suggestions, please e-mail me. Thanks. E-mail: ezh1 [ AT ] cornell [ DOT ] edu ------------------- >From Monte Hilleman, Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, St. Paul, MN: The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance kicked off its "Reduce Waste - If Not You, Who?" campaign on Saturday, Jan 15, 2000. The campaign is in response to growing waste generation (up 21 percent per capita from 1992 to 1998) and the environmental and economic problems associated with those trends. On our current course, Minnesota will generate three times as much waste as we do today by the year 2020; we simply do not have the capacity for that much waste in our current system. This is our first broad-based consumer focused waste reduction effort since the Saving Money and Reducing Trash (SMART) campaign of the early 1990's. We spent approximately $500,000 to ensure quality production of our mass media efforts and prime-time placement with several media partners (TV/radio/outdoor/etc). We are using a blend of mass-media and local-level education efforts (including some aspects of Community Based Social Marketing, http://www.cbsm.com/) in a five-week push lasting through February. We did baseline evaluation on attitudes and behavior pre-campaign, and will have post-campaign data sometime in March. We'll be sure to share it with this group. The campaign will continue to be an umbrella for reduction issues far into the future. An array of print pieces were created to aid local efforts, and a campaign version of the King County (WA) Waste Free Fridays program is kicking off in February. Our campaign target audience is Minnesota families with children at home (adults 25-54, kids 12-17) fitting the psychological profile of "early adopters," those that are environmentally concerned and looking for the next step. Early research showed little-to-no consumer awareness of waste reduction. Most consumers thought recycling was reducing waste. We're trying to draw attention to reduction as something distinct from recycling, and work off of the successes with recycling in Minnesota to bring people up the waste management hierarchy to reduction. Check out http://www.reduce.org to see the TV commercial and some of the print pieces. The website will expand and change continually as we have the planned release of seasonal materials throughout the year. For more info, contact me (Monte Hilleman, campaign coordinator) at (800)657-3843 or by e-mail at: monte (DOT) hilleman (AT) moea (DOT) state (DOT) mn (DOT) us --------------------- >From Ann Schneider, Mountain View, CA: The California Resource Recovery Association's Repair, Resale and Reuse Council is developing a series of "How-To Fact Sheets" designed to help local recycling/reuse coordinators, businesses and schools to implement more reuse at their locations. I was wondering if anyone else has already written some. They should be one-page, double-sided, and include the cost of time and materials to implement. Thanks. E-mail: SchneiderAnn ( AT ) juno ( DOT ) com Address: 430 Hillwood Ct., Mountain View, CA, 94040 Phone: (650) 962-0404 Fax: (650) 988-1368 -------------------- The next two postings are in response to Mike Ruby's 1/18/00 message proposing an increase in the U.S. postal rates of 0.1 cents per piece for bulk mail, to be paid into a fund to support recycling efforts: -------------------- >From Julie Rhodes, Reuse Development Organization (ReDO), Indianapolis, IN: I do think it's appropriate to discourage junk mail through increased rates that support solutions. However, I have a couple of comments regarding this issue: 1) The postal service offers the lower rate for the sole purpose of encouraging volume and offering reduced rates if you prepare materials a certain way and mail in bulk - I wonder how open they will be to discouraging this. 2) You HAVE to be careful when you talk about "bulk" mailings. That is, many organizations utilize bulk mailing rates to SAVE MONEY, but not as a method of generating a lot of unnecessary waste. For instance, non-profit organizations send out their newsletters using a bulk rate to save money. The newsletter only goes to those who subscribe and say they want the item. This is not unnecessary junk mail, but a beneficial piece of mail (there are still a few of those out there, though lost in the sea of junk). Just be careful that you not penalize the legitimate use of bulk mailing; perhaps there is a way to distinguish the two in any proposal you submit. If not, I think it would be a tough proposal to gain support on, even if the intent is good. E-mail: info (AT) redo (DOT) org ------------------- >From Jesse White, Resource Management Group, Sarasota, FL: Here's my waste reduction take on the U.S. Postal Service. The postal rate system does, to some extent, encourage waste reduction through charging more for heavier pieces. However, it charges less for bulk mailings, so some organizations send duplicates in order to qualify for the better rate. The largest waste is in blanket mailings, e.g., those addressed to "boxholder" or "resident." Here mailers will send 600 or 700 pieces to a post office with 500 boxes, of which 300 may be rented. This is "just to be sure" that everyone gets one of those weekly flyers, ads, newspapers. This creates extra handling of excess materials by postal workers, and a lot of waste. These waste issues are difficult to deal with both from the perspective of the mailer and the Postal Service. The mailer wants to reach their audience, and direct mail and bulk mail does do the trick. The Postal Service generates significant revenue from this mail segment, and handling "resident/boxholder" mailings are easy; every address gets a mailer and there's no sorting effort. So, waste reduction is a really hard sell in this case because there's not a lot of direct benefit to distribute to the stakeholders. Another aspect of this issue is the recyclability of mail. Recyclability is an issue for this forum, in as much as if mail is not recyclable, it will be disposed. While most mail IS recyclable and quite a bit is being recycled by the Postal Service, I think it would be great if rate preference was offered for mailings that are 100 percent paper. I also think it would be great if the terms of best-rate postage include a stipulation that excess mailings can be distributed to charity, as in the case of samples. E-mail: Jessewhite [A T] aol [D O T] com -------------------- >From Barb Nesheim, Minnesota Materials Exchange Alliance, Minneapolis, MN, responding to the 1/18/00 item about how stores often charge more by weight for products in larger sizes, even though those larger sizes are more economical for companies to make and ship: I am an avid supporter of the price-per-unit labels that our grocery stores in Minnesota use. I look at these all the time. I am often surprised to see that the larger size is often more expensive, and of the variance of prices among competing brands. When I was in Iowa over Christmas and went grocery shopping, I definitely missed the labels! E-mail: neshe005 (AT) tc (DOT) umn (DOT) edu -------------------- >From Lisa Sepanski, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA: Here is the link to a 1/19/00 article called "Internet Boosts Economy and Saves Energy, Report Says," on the Environmental News Network. It might relate to Peter Allison's 1/6/00 request for "data or anecdotes regarding the source reduction benefits (or costs) of distributing information electronically as opposed to by mail": http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2000/01/01192000/ecomenergy_9174.asp E-mail: lisa [ D O T ] sepanski [ A T ] metrokc [ D O T ] gov -------------------- >From Sandi Sturm, Creative Conservation, Grand Junction, CO: If this forum ever decides to give out awards for being the most wasteful, I would like to nominate Burger King. In the past two years, they have demolished two stores here in my small town and built new ones in the same lots. There was nothing wrong with the old ones! The building was not salvaged, but landfilled. E-mail: sturm (AT) iti2 (DOT) net -------------------- >From Michelle Portman, Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Waste Prevention, Boston, MA: I am at wits' end about the amount of junk mail in the postal system, and wonder if there is a way to require perpetrators of this waste to guarantee payment of "return to sender" postage. I'm especially annoyed by Fred Pryor Seminars, who I receive at least one piece of junk mail from daily (!!!!) after having taken one of their seminars (which I wasn't even too thrilled with) about six months ago. I've just removed myself from their mailing list. However, they are marketing their materials/seminars so aggressively that I'm skeptical about it taking only one phone call to get off the list. In addition to brochures, publications lists, magazines, etc., etc., from that company, I'm still receiving incorrect invoices from them about six months after making payment, sending faxes and returning phone calls about the screw-up on the billing process. I'm going to try "return to sender" next. E-mail: michelle [D O T] portman [A T] state [D O T] ma [D O T] us --------------------- >From Tom Watson, National Waste Prevention Coalition and King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA: A few months ago, a graduate student at the University of Washington called me and said he was working on a paper with a fellow student. The paper was about the environmental impacts of tires, from a full life-cycle perspective. I e-mailed him some information and leads, on tire retreading and other related subjects, and asked him to send me a copy of the paper when it was done. Well, lo and behold, this week he e-mailed me with the Internet link to their paper, and it's really pretty impressive! Although part of the paper specifically focuses on Washington state, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in tire issues (including producer responsibility, alternatives to disposal, etc.). The authors, Japhet Koteen and Molly Vogt, have done a terrific job of presenting their research online in a clean, easily-accessible format. Here's the address: http://students.washington.edu/mvogt/tires - end -