WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ARCHIVE   BACK TO ARCHIVE INDEX

22 Sep 00 - job; coffee bags; computer toxics; consumption; climate change; double-sided printing ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- Excerpted from a message from Meg Lynch, Metro, Portland, OR (from the Reuse Development Organization listserv): RECYCLING/REUSE MARKET DEVELOPMENT POSITION Metro, the regional government in Portland, Oregon, is recruiting for a Recycling Market Development Coordinator. The application deadline is October 16, 2000. The pay range for this full-time position is $43,080 - $57,704 annually. Metro seeks a person to develop, implement and lead a new program to develop markets for recycled and reused materials. Metro has established a significant new fund to provide financial and technical assistance to businesses and nonprofit organizations that reuse or recycle locally generated materials in their products. Job duties will include managing the fund (the Recycling Business Assistance Program), monitoring and analyzing recycling markets, and providing assistance and support on recycling market and product development to Metro, businesses, nonprofit organizations, local governments and other agencies. Minimum requirements are a bachelor's degree in marketing, finance or other related discipline, and three years' progressively responsible experience in market and business development, recycling market development, grant/loan management, or any combination of education and experience that would provide the applicant with the desired knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform the job. Experience in solid waste and recycling principles and practices is highly desired, as is experience in lending principles and practices and the ability to read, analyze and evaluate financial statements and business plans. For a complete position announcement and the application procedure, contact the Metro Human Resource department at 503-797-1570. Note from Tom: Also see this website, for general info on job openings at Metro: http://www.metro-region.org/jobs/jobs.html -------------------- From Stephanie Davis, Waste Reduction Remedies, Berkeley, CA: What can be done with commercial burlap coffee bags? I picked one up recently from a local wholesale and retail store for my worm bin and after chatting with staff about their excess bags and disposal issues, realized someone "out there" has probably dealt with this issue. I do know that not all burlap bags are made of the same material and some (all?) have toxic inks added for lettering and some (all?) may have toxic additives to the material. No clue on weight, strength and size differences/issues. How have they been reused on a large scale? Can they be recycled?, and if yes, co-mingled? Are any regional/county agencies advertising them for/using them for worm bins? (And do the worms eat them, or is it just for moisture/insect control?) Do they decompose and thus can be composted? Can textile recyclers use them? Know of any specific case studies and contacts? Know any brokers for this product in the San Francisco area? Let me know, and the listserv, if appropriate. Thanks. E-mail: ScD18 [ A T ] WasteReductionRemedies [ D O T ] com -------------------- Link to a 9/18/00 article by Jim Fisher in Salon, an Internet magazine, about toxic materials in personal computers (forwarded by Ted Smith, Sego Jackson and Marcia Rutan): http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/09/18/toxic_pc/index.html -------------------- Link to a "Responsible Consumption" quiz on the website of the Center for a New American Dream (forwarded by Paul Dunn): http://www.newdream.org/cgi-bin/quiz/answer.pl?qid=1&nq.x=26&nq.y=18 --------------------- Excerpted from a message from Sonya Newenhouse, Madison Environmental Group, Madison, WI, and National Recycling Coalition (NRC) Climate Change Project: The next NRC Climate Change Online Discussion, "Document Your Success: Learn how to document greenhouse gas impacts of your waste prevention efforts," will be held Thursday, Sept. 28, at 2 p.m. Eastern time. It is sponsored by NRC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To participate, go to http://www.nrc-recycle.org Click on the green ball. Click on "NRC Programs." Click on "Climate Change & Waste Reduction." Follow instructions to enter Online Forum. It takes about 5 minutes to register and enter the discussion. Some computer systems may experience firewalls. On Thursday, Oct. 26 we will discuss "The Future" (2 p.m. Eastern time). Transcripts of prior climate change discussions are available online at the NRC website. Please contact me if you have questions or suggestions. E-mail: sonya ( A T ) madisonenvironmental ( D O T ) com --------------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and National Waste Prevention Coalition, responding to the 9/19/00 posting from Sandy Grant seeking information on duplexing (printing on both sides of the paper), for both printers and copiers: Here at King County, I have been been working with two other staff members, Alexandra Scott and Kinley Deller, on an office paper reduction project for the King County Department of Natural Resources (DNR), of which the Solid Waste Division is a part. DNR has nearly 1,400 employees (probably 1,000-plus work in offices). DNR is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WasteWise program (a voluntary program for businesses and government agencies), and office paper reduction is one of our WasteWise goals. We sent out an e-mail in June to all DNR employees. Here's an excerpt from that e-mail: "What we've learned so far is that every section has different printer, copier and paper needs. It doesn't necessarily work to try to impose universal paper reduction measures on people. We would rather approach this by: 1) Occasionally reminding you of ways you can use less paper; and 2) Trying to help you overcome barriers to paper reduction. We could, for example, steer you to people who can show you how to do more double-sided printing or copying, using the existing equipment in your office.... In the coming weeks, we - the WasteWise committee - will be contacting people in various DNR sections with specific suggestions for paper reduction. Please let us know if you would like us to do a presentation at your staff meeting. Also contact us if you have any ideas or questions...." We received more than 40 responses to this e-mail, and since then we've done five presentations to DNR sections or work groups. We've had some successes: There is evidence of an increase in individual efforts to reduce paper, and one section started an innovative envelope reuse program. But encouraging duplex (double-sided) printing has been one of our biggest challenges. A number of employees told us that they wished they could do duplex printing, but we have had a hard time helping people with this. One computer systems person in the Department is very opposed to duplex printing, because she says she saw a lot of paper jams when the printers in her section were set up for duplexing (as a result of these problems, she had all the duplexing units removed on their printers). Ironically, she says the jams are the result of using recycled paper but, of course, we're not going to stop using recycled paper. However, other computer systems people in other sections of the Department support duplex printing, and they do not feel that duplex printing causes paper jams. In my section, we've been doing duplex printing successfully for awhile. Last month, we did an e-mail survey of people in two sections that have duplex printing available, to ask about their experiences. The results: Of the 23 respondents, not a single person reported any problems with paper jams or print quality while duplex printing. Nearly half of the respondents said they do duplex printing at least 90 percent of the time. Two-thirds of the respondents said they do duplex printing at least 50 percent of the time. My personal conclusions about duplex printing: - It's worthwhile to try to get duplexing units installed on your printers, but you may have to fight a battle with your computer people to get that to happen. - Once duplex printing is available, you still need to convince people to use it, and show them how. This takes time. - If you're going to do a campaign, it might make more sense to focus on reminding people to do duplex (double-sided) copying. Most copy machines these days easily do double-sided copying, and with copying there is often a larger number of pages involved than there is with printing. - Another strategy is to encourage people to reduce the amount of material that they print out - by example, not preaching. E-mail: tom (DOT) watson (AT) metrokc (DOT) gov - end -