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19 Sep 00 - duplex printing; reuse; green business; coupon book; electronics; paper facts ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Sandy Grant, City of Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment, Santa Monica, CA, following up on her 9/12/00 posting seeking information about communities that have implemented paper waste generation reduction programs with their local businesses: I'd like to submit another question: We are focusing our community-based social marketing office paper waste reduction study - at least to start - on duplexing (printing on both sides of the paper), for both printers and copiers. I'm looking for information on how office employees and management view duplexing. (I have the list of duplexing equipment from Bruce Nordman at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and I know one of the issues for copiers is that it's slower and they jam more frequently while duplexing. I also know that duplexing printers are expensive, high-speed printers that would most likely have to be networked to be cost-effective.) 1. Are there any use or cost issues with printers? 2. Why don't companies with duplexing printers use that feature? 3. Do you have any data on duplexing with digital copiers - usage and cost/benefit data? 4. How have waste reduction programs overcome issues with both forms of duplexing? Thanks. E-mail: sgrant51 ( A T ) earthlink ( D O T ) net -------------------- Excerpted from message from Leif Christiansen, Local Government Commission, Sacramento, CA (forwarded by Gary Liss): Reuse Enthusiasts: Need help promoting reuse? Check out Second Chance Week's updated on-line resources at: http://www.choose2reuse.org This website provides FREE tools and resources for effectively coordinating local reuse promotions and other activities during Second Chance Week - and year-round. California's Fourth Annual Second Chance Week (October 21 - 29, 2000) is quickly approaching. If you're planning a reuse event in California for that week, be sure to register your event with the Local Government Commission by e-mailing an update to me at: leif [ AT ] lgc [ DOT ] org -------------------- Excerpted from a message from the Green Business Network, Oakland, CA, and from information on their website: The nonprofit Green Business Network recently launched a new website: http://www.GreenBiz.com GreenBiz.com offers a wealth of free resources for mainstream companies seeking to align responsibility with business success. Included are daily news and columnists, tools and reports, backgrounders on business environmental topics, and annotated directories of organizations, web sites, government programs, mentoring programs, award programs, events, books, and more. Sponsors of the website include: Pitney Bowes, AT&T, Bank of America, Green Audit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Green Business Letter. -------------------- Link to an article by Michelle Cole in the 9/15/00 Portland Oregonian about a new "resource and coupon guide book to food, entertainment, products and services having significantly less environmental impact," funded by several government agencies (from Jim Schrock's "Delete this Newsletter"): http://www.oregonlive.com/outdoors/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/09/cu_61book15.frame The book is called the "Chinook Book." Chinook is a Native American name for king salmon. -------------------- From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WasteWise listserv: The next National Recycling Coalition on-line expert forum, titled "Environmentally Preferred Purchasing of Computers and Electronics," will take place Sept. 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The forum will bring together four experts from across the U.S. to discuss ways in which government and industry procurement can be used to address the problems posed by electronic wastes. Questions to be addressed include: What environmental benefits can industry offer through design for the environment? What would be the best standards for a voluntary "green star" program? To participate, go to this website: http://www.nrc-recycle.org/programs/electronics Click on "Online Forum." -------------------- Excerpted from "Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape," by Janet Abramovitz and Ashley Mattoon, Worldwatch Institute Paper 149, December, 1999: Worldwatch Institute is a Washington, DC-based environmental organization. This research paper includes these nuggets of information: - There has been a more than sixfold increase in global paper use since 1950. Since the mid-1970s alone, paper use has more than doubled, and there is no end in sight to this trend. World paper consumption is expected to jump nearly a third in the next 10 years. - About 20 percent of all the wood harvested globally is used to make paper. - The paper industry ranks among the highest in resource use and pollution generation, all to make a product that is usually discarded after being used once. The pulp and paper industry uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. Paper comprises roughly 40 percent of the municipal solid waste burden in many industrial countries. - The number of pieces of mail delivered in the U.S. between 1993 and 1998 increased by 16 percent, and the amount of advertising mail rose by 25 percent. The amount of advertising, or "direct," mail in the United States has nearly tripled over the last two decades. - According to a leading industry analyst, the number of pieces of paper consumed in U.S. offices is growing at a rate of about 20 percent each year. In 1996, office copiers in the United States churned out more than 800 billion sheets of paper, laser printers nearly as much. When divided by the size of the U.S. civilian labor force, the amount of office paper consumed was almost 12,000 sheets per person. - Many companies have already begun using paper-saving strategies. Bank of America, now the largest commercial bank in the United States, decided in 1994 to reduce its paper use by an ambitious 25 percent in just two years. It reported that it exceeded that goal by 1997 by using online reports and forms, e-mail, and voice mail instead of paper forms and memos, duplex copying, and lighter-weight papers. Trimming the weight of the paper in automatic teller machines by 25 percent alone saved 228 tons of paper a year. For information on how to get a copy of this research paper, see the Worldwatch website at: http://www.worldwatch.org Scroll down to the little box on the left that says "Free Paper," and you can receive a free electronic copy of this paper if you complete a Worldwatch website user survey. Or, click on "New Publications" and scroll down, and you can order a copy of the paper for $5. - end -