WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ARCHIVE   BACK TO ARCHIVE INDEX

16 Feb 00 - school labs; internal reuse; hospitals; sharing; dry cleaning alternatives ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- >From Sandi Sturm, Mesa County, Grand Junction, CO: I have been working for a year and a half with our local school district to reduce hazardous waste in our school labs. Currently, most middle and high school teachers do not have a chemistry background, or in some cases, no chemistry whatsoever. It has been a long road convincing the school officials that there is a problem in our children's classrooms. Some teachers have actually had students stack chemicals alphabetically on shelves, creating extremely dangerous situations! Our program has included a training session for teachers (not mandatory by the district), a special training session for our health inspectors (never been trained on this before), inspections of the schools (direct correlation between clean schools and those who took training), and now training of two interns from our local college to take computerized inventories of each school. Our overall goal is to make training mandatory, and to reduce the hazardous waste generated by our schools. After our first inspections, two schools cleaned out their hazards, and the entire budget was used up for the year! There are several options to reduce hazardous waste, including: (1) promoting small-scale chemistry to reduce chemical storage; (2) create a district waste exchange program; and (3) centralize purchasing. I would like to know if anyone out there has any experience with this and also if everyone is aware of this major problem so close to our children? Are your schools doing everything it can to safeguard against hazardous accidents? Reduction is a major first step. Please respond to: ssturm (AT) co (DOT) mesa (DOT) co (DOT) us --------------------- >From Patricia Seto, Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), Burnaby, British Columbia, responding to the 2/10/00 posting on internal reuse programs: Thanks for the info. I just wanted to know if there are any stats on how much money was saved using these internal reuse programs. I have been encouraging reuse here within our own GVRD offices, but one of the biggest constraints is space. For these programs, is there typically a centralized holding area? E-mail: Patricia (DOT) Seto (AT) gvrd (DOT) bc (DOT) ca ---------------------- >From Stephanie Davis, Waste Reduction Remedies, Berkeley, CA: Does anyone have a real or estimated amount of cost savings at healthcare facilities that is attributable to solid waste/recycling signage? Please let me know ASAP; the information is for an article deadline. Thanks. E-mail: ScD18 [A T] WasteReductionRemedies [D O T] com ---------------------- Also from Stephanie Davis: Colorado Hospitals for a Healthy Environment, with funding assistance from the Pollution Prevention Program of the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, has developed a 36-page handbook, Pollution Prevention Opportunities for Chemicals in Colorado Hospitals. It includes general pollution prevention guidelines; suggested alternatives and pollution prevention recommendations for specific chemicals like mercury and silver; vendor information; and extensive resource material for additional assistance. While some information specific to Colorado is included, the general information and resources are applicable anywhere. An e-mail request to pat (DOT) mcclearn (AT) chhn (DOT) com will get you either the Table of Contents via e-mail attachment (WordPerfect format) for review of information, or the entire handbook. --------------------- >From David Haviland, "iShareStuff.org" (this was sent to this list, and also forwarded by Bill Reed from the GreenYes list): I'm writing to tell you about a new website that I think your organization would be interested in. iShareStuff is a free and private service that makes it easy for people to catalog things they own that they would be willing to share with their friends. The point of the site is to make it easy for people to share things so that we can all cut down on needless and wasteful purchasing of items that we don't need every day. iShareStuff is designed to protect users' privacy. Each user decides who can access his or her sharing information (so it's not broadcast to the whole world). Each user's information is kept private and shown only to the people who the user says can see it. With iShareStuff, if people need something, they can easily check to see if someone they know already owns it before they go out and buy it too. We're proud of the new service, hope it can help in your efforts, and hope you'll share it with people you think might find it useful. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. The website is located at http://www.isharestuff.org E-mail: davehav [ AT ] go [ DOT ] com Note from Tom: I don't know David Haviland, and I don't know anything about this service other than what he wrote above. If anyone decides to sign up for this service and try it, I think that many of us on this list would be interested in hearing about your experiences. --------------------- Excerpted from article by Barnaby Feder on the front page of the business section in the 2/15/00 New York Times: For over a decade, the dry cleaning business has looked like a tantalizing opportunity for environmentally-minded entrepreneurs. Despite increasing regulations aimed at cutting air pollution and groundwater contamination, not to mention criticism from groups like Greenpeace and Consumers Union, a vast majority of the nation's roughly 33,000 dry cleaners persist in using toxic chemicals linked to cancer, nervous system ailments and other health hazards. "Green cleaners" using water and new biodegradable detergents sprang up in many communities in the 1990's, with some reporting customers coming from 20 miles or more away. But few existing dry cleaners were inclined to switch because "wet cleaning" takes longer, increases labor costs and can easily lead to shrinkage or other quality problems. Many felt vindicated when Ecomat, a wet cleaner that featured ad slogans like "Is Your Dry Cleaner Killing You?" went bankrupt in 1998. Now the green spotlight is being claimed by Hangers Cleaners, which is trying to sell the industry and its customers on a radically different technology. Hangers uses a biodegradable soap dissolved not in water but in liquefied carbon dioxide, a substance so safe it is used to decaffeinate coffee and inject the fizz into soft drinks. The backers of Hangers see it as a high-profile model of "green chemistry," the unofficial name that government officials gave to various programs in 1991 aimed at weaning society from its reliance on noxious chemicals. Repeat business at the first stores is high, and potential franchisees have signed up for more than 40 territories ranging as far west as Lincoln, Neb., according to Micell Technologies, which owns the technology and the Hangers name. Micell is based in Raleigh, NC. Still, Hangers has been on a slower track than it hoped when its technology won the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 1997. Rather than the 500 outlets and $50 million in sales it expected by the end of last year, it has opened only a handful of stores, providing strong evidence that environmental benefits matter only after customers are satisfied about cost, quality and convenience. Micell assumed it had a ready market in dry cleaners nervous about perc, which earned a reputation as a versatile and powerful degreaser during World War II and rapidly replaced the petroleum-based solvents that had frequently been fire hazards in the 1950's. Environmental regulations were driving up operating and waste-disposal costs for perc systems. Everything the chemical touched except the clothes themselves was deemed a hazardous waste as a result of the 1990 Clean Air Act, requiring extensive paperwork and special disposal. Cities like New York passed regulations requiring cleaners in residential buildings to close or invest tens of thousands of dollars in new equipment that prevented perc from being released. Some landlords pressed cleaners to close down or switch to cleaner methods. As it turned out, though, cleaners were not as afraid of perc's near-term future as Micell anticipated. Their equipment suppliers developed systems so efficient that the entire industry used just 72 million pounds of perc in 1998, down from 235 million a decade earlier. The newest designs virtually eliminated accidental spills and emissions. Those that are moving away from the chemical are not necessarily seeing Micell as their best option. Some are expanding their use of water. Others are turning to the newest petroleum solvents, which are making a comeback because suppliers like Exxon created improved cleaners that are harder to ignite. Micell's equipment design is also proving to be a major hurdle. Its current cleaning system is easy to operate, but the 10-ton rectangle of pipes, reservoirs, pumps and filters dwarfs anything else on the market and is far too large for the cramped quarters of many dry cleaners. More important, at $150,000 a unit, it is often far too expensive. Top-of-the-line perc systems handling similar-sized loads cost about $60,000. Petroleum systems are not much more, and wet-cleaning systems cost as little as $20,000. And many cleaners are particularly reluctant to make big new capital investments after enduring several years when the trend toward casual dress hurt sales, which industry experts estimate were about $6.5 billion last year. Micell says its equipment cleans more quickly and reduces operating costs in so many ways that the extra cost is recouped within three years, assuming pricing that matches higher-end cleaners. But many in the industry remain skeptical. Some cleaners say they are convinced that the process is more productive and, because it operates at room temperature, gentler on clothes, but not that it can clean as well as perc. Some, like Bruce Barish, a third-generation owner of Ernest Winzer Cleaners in the Bronx, say they are interested in the technology but are leaning toward working with a competing dioxide design from Global Technologies, an El Segundo, Calif., company that has been progressing more slowly toward commercialization than Micell. Global has licensed seven manufacturers to make machinery, which it said would be widely available later this year with no franchising strings attached. The market was muddied further by the sudden appearance last year of Zoots, a Newton, Mass., enterprise. Todd Krasnow, Zoots's chief executive, said that he wanted nothing to do with perc and that petroleum cleaning systems met Zoots's quality and environmental needs. Note from Tom: As of now, the full article on dry cleaning alternatives is at: http://www.nytimes.com/00/02/15/news/financial/dry-cleaning.html However, within a day or so after publication (which was on 2/15), the New York Times usually takes articles off its free site, and you will then have to pay $2.50 per article to see a copy of the story. ------------------- >From Tom Watson, Waste Prevention Forum moderator: I will be out of the office next Monday through Wednesday, Feb. 21-23, so there will be no installments of the Forum during that time. Thanks! - end -