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04 Apr 00 - greetings; 3 computer items; medical waste reduction ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- >From David Saphire, New York City, former staff member with Inform and author of the 1994 Inform report, "Case Reopened: Reassessing Refillable Bottles," among many other reports: ANOTHER FORMER WASTE PREVENTIONER I've been meaning to write for a while now, but Tom Watson's small piece on folks who have left the waste prevention fold (3/29/00 posting) pushed me over the inertia threshold. I've been an environmental educator with the Council on the Environment of New York City for the past year, working in high schools in Brooklyn. Currently, I'm mostly onto water restoration projects - working with students to try and create green space by forgotten industrial waterways. Also some air quality work. Last semester (I live in that fragmented world now), though, I did a waste prevention-related project with a painting class that created still-life paintings of household projects that highlighted their potential hazards. Each painting was accompanied by a short research paper that discussed alternatives to the products being portrayed. The paintings were shown at an informational event on hazardous household products and were a great way to draw people to a table where they were given demonstrations by the students of safer alternatives. Please say hello to all active in the waste prevention world. I still get teary-eyed when I see a refillable bottle. E-mail: saphire [ A T ] inx [ D O T ] net -------------------- >From Tom Watson, National Waste Prevention Coalition and King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA: Below is a message I received on 4/3/00 from Carol Blake, owner of Access Floor Systems in Covington, Louisiana. Since 1996, Carol has run a charitable program called "Floppies for Kiddies." In this program, they accept donations of used or promotional 3-and-a-1/2" computer diskettes (also known as "floppy disks"), erase them, and donate them to schools. I had written Carol to see if the program was still operating. It's great to hear that the program is going strong. However, please take note of her observation that they have all the disks they can handle right now. We (those of us in the waste management field) don't need to do any new or additional promotion of this program, although we can keep any existing blurbs about the program that are on our websites, in brochures, etc. The main reason I'm running her note is because it sounds like she could really use some funding or other support. If you know of any organizations who might be able to help, please tell them about this program. The website for the program is at: http://www.usacitylink.com/citylink/disks/ (Some of the information on the website is a little out of date.) --------------------- >From Carol Blake, Access Floor Systems, Covington, LA: Hi Tom, sorry it took so long to get back to you. As far as an update on the Floppies for Kiddies project, it is still in full swing. At this time, we have all the disks we can handle and continue to mail them to schools at the rate of 500 a box. We have a list of 325 schools right now waiting for disks. We have over 200,000 in processing right now. This project has grown enormously. I hope to keep it going. My company, Access Floor Systems, has financed the whole thing. UPS had paid for one shipment and then they never donated again. I have been using my people in the off times to erase and package disks. It is a fun way to contribute. We aren't advertising, but we get in hundreds of disks a day. We are happy with the way things are going. It is a small part of closing the loop. This Earth Day I can honestly say as a citizen of this country I have done my part. I haven't always been able to be proud of that. But I have been doing this for four years. It makes me feel good about keeping the disks out of landfills and knowing I have been the vehicle to put them in the hands of our future - the kids. Hope all is well with you, and thank you for inquiring about the Project. Maybe one day, someone will come in with some real money and make this project all it can be. My resources are limited. And to update you on those outdated stats online, we are now well over 2 million disks. Thanks, and Happy Earth Day. E-mail: carol [A T] eagle [D O T] no [D O T] neosoft [D O T] com -------------------- Excerpted from an article by Kathryn Balint in the 4/1/00 San Diego Union-Tribune (forwarded from the Reuse Development Organization listserv and the Digital Divide Network): The Detwiler Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the San Diego area that says it has donated 75,000 computers to classrooms across the nation, has closed the program in the wake of dwindling financial support, criticism and a state attorney general's investigation. Started nine years ago by entrepreneur John Detwiler and his family, the foundation solicited old computers from businesses, had them refurbished by state prison inmates, then gave them to schools. The organization's Computers for Schools Program became the largest of its kind in the United States. But recently, the high-profile Detwiler Foundation has come under fire: - Some school officials complained that the computers donated by the foundation were "unusable" or "junk." - The California Department of Corrections stopped refurbishing computers for the foundation two years ago during a dispute in which state officials accused the nonprofit organization of attempting to charge schools for the donated computers. - Corrections officials also raised objections because the Detwiler Foundation donated computers refurbished by prison inmates to private schools. - A 1997 state analysis showed that many of the donated computers went to the Silicon Valley, raising concerns that the foundation wasn't distributing the equipment equitably throughout the state. - There was criticism of the $100,000-plus annual salary paid to John Detwiler as president of the tax-exempt foundation. - And, since last year, the state Attorney General's Office has been investigating the foundation. In the midst of these issues, monetary donations slowed to a trickle. Employees left the foundation. Publicity dropped off. Finally, early last month, Detwiler sent letters to donors saying that the foundation will no longer accept or process computer donations. Within California, the San Diego-based Technology Training Foundation of America, headed by political consultant Jeanette Roache, is picking up where the Detwiler Foundation left off. In addition, the newly formed Computers for Schools Association, based in Chicago, is taking over the Detwiler Foundation's donation program for the rest of the nation. For the complete article, see: http://www.uniontrib.com/news/uniontrib/sat/index.html Scroll down to find the link to the article. ------------------- Excerpted from a 4/1/00 Associated Press article by Martin Finucane (forwarded by Bill Smith): BOSTON - With electronic equipment becoming obsolete at an increasingly rapid rate, Massachusetts is instituting the nation's first ban on the disposal of computer screens, TV sets and other glass picture tubes in landfills and incinerators. The new regulations took effect April 1 and mean that people can no longer simply throw their computers and TV sets in the trash. Instead, the state is setting up six collection centers to handle the items, and cities and towns must transport the items to those centers. From there, they will either be refurbished or sent on for recycling. The focus of the new regulations is cathode ray tubes (CRTs), which is the technical name for the glowing screens used in televisions and computer monitors. The average cathode ray tube contains 5 to 8 pounds of lead that can seep into the groundwater under landfills or, if the tube is incinerated, get into the air. Though the regulation focuses on the CRTs, Massachusetts environmental officials say they expect people to recycle the entire computer. And they are happy about that, because computers' printed circuit boards can also contain toxic chemicals. A major wave of electronics trash is being forecast nationwide in coming years as people buy newer, cheaper computers. The Chicago-based, nonprofit National Safety Council has estimated that 20.6 million personal computers became obsolete in 1998 alone, with about a quarter of them being thrown out. Waste management officials are also worried that millions of people may buy new TVs when television networks switch to digital transmission signals later this decade. Some activists and public officials, while welcoming government recycling efforts, have argued that companies should be responsible for taking their products back once they have become obsolete. But Alec Rosen, a spokesman for Apple Computer Inc., said: "I don't think that's realistic. It's about as realistic as Detroit being responsible for taking cars back." He suggested people donate their used computers to schools or charities. "All of them would love to take a good computer off of someone's hands," he said. "There are a lot of good uses for old computers, Macs and PCs." -------------------- >From Stephanie Davis, Waste Reduction Remedies, Berkeley CA: California Assembly Member Audie Bock has introduced a medical waste reduction bill, number AB 2667. The text of the bill can be viewed at: http://leginfo.public.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_2651-2700/ab_2667_bill_20000225_introduced.html You can also use this site to follow the status of the bill in the legislature, and to view the text of the bill: http://leginfo.public.ca.gov/bilinfo.html You need to enter the number of the bill, AB 2667. Stephanie's e-mail: ScD18 ( A T ) WasteReductionRemedies ( D O T ) com - end -