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12 Mar 01 - incentives; Reader's Digest; mercury; Blue Angel; cell phone; cleaning products ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Colleen Hetzel, Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, St. Paul, MN: Minnesota will be running a statewide campaign to educate consumers about waste reduction. In the past campaign, an "incentive" was given to people that listened and understood the message. It was also used as a way to attract people's attention. We gave out unbleached, all-natural cotton bags for people to use when they went shopping so they would not have to take a paper or plastic bag. We are looking for a new idea to use as an incentive. We know that the best thing to do would be to discourage the giving away of any item, but people are more willing to listen if they see a prize. Does anyone have any ideas that promote waste reduction practices but would still be used and grab people's attention? Thank you. E-mail: colleen [ D O T ] hetzel [ A T ] moea [ D O T ] state [ D O T ] mn [ D O T ] us Note from Tom: Another creative thing that the state of Minnesota has done in this regard is to ask consumers to make a pledge to reduce waste, and everyone who made the pledge was then entered in a drawing. Twenty winners in the drawing each won a pair of airline tickets. -------------------- Excerpted from a 3/8/01 press release from the State of Washington Attorney General's Office: READER'S DIGEST AGREES TO PAY RESTITUTION AND CHANGE SWEEPSTAKES MAILING PRACTICES A nearly two-year effort to reform the nation's sweepstakes industry concluded on March 8th with a settlement with the Reader's Digest Association. Under the agreement, Reader's Digest, one of the nation's largest sweepstakes firms, will pay nearly $6.1 million in restitution to participating states and $2.1 million in costs and fees. The states will distribute the restitution money among sweepstakes customers who each purchased more than $2,500 worth of merchandise from Reader's Digest in 1998, 1999 or 2000 (in addition to using sweepstakes as a means of selling magazine subscriptions, Reader's Digest also sells a wide variety of books, videos and audiotapes). Washington state's share is estimated at $235,000, which will be distributed among the approximately 290 qualifying Washington residents. The settlement by the District of Columbia and 32 states - including Washington - also will require Reader's Digest to make dramatic changes in the way it uses sweepstakes promotions as a sales tool. The changes already are in place for other major sweepstakes companies that settled with the states last year. "These settlements have forced these companies to change their misleading business practices and put money back into the pockets of consumers," Washington State Attorney General Christine Gregoire said. Other sweepstakes companies that previously settled with the states are Publisher's Clearing House (PCH), Time Inc., and American Family Enterprises (AFE). Like those companies, Reader's Digest will be required to provide clear and conspicuous "Sweepstakes Facts" in contest entry forms. The facts must include the odds of winning, and must clearly state that a person's already remote chances of winning will not be increased by making a purchase. The settlement also requires Reader's Digest to: - Maintain a toll-free telephone number for consumers who wish to be placed on the company's "Do Not Contact" list concerning future solicitations. - Remove persons from its mailing list who buy merchandise at unusually high levels. - Refrain from claiming that a person has won, or is close to winning. - Offer a standard means of entering its sweepstakes for free. The effort to reform the sweepstakes industry began in April, 1999, when Gregoire sued Time, AFE and PCH. Last April, the state settled with another large sweepstakes company, United States Sales Corp., which does business as United States Purchasing Exchange (USPE). Settlements with AFE, PCH and Time followed. ---- Historical note from Tom: The National Waste Prevention Coalition (which sponsors this e-mail forum) presented Junk Mail Awards in 1995, as part of its national Junk Mail Reduction Campaign. Awards were given to the most responsible and most wasteful direct mailers, based on nominations from the public. The winner of the Most Wasteful Direct Mailer award was Reader's Digest, for its sweepstakes mailings. In addition to its misleading practices, Reader's Digest has been a prolific generator of waste in mailings. Along with humongous amounts of paper, their sweepstakes mailings have included items such as car keys (for the car that you might win) and cassette tapes (labeled, "This is an Important Message from the Sweepstakes Manager of Reader's Digest - Please Listen Carefully"). -------------------- From the website for the Mercury Policy Project, Montpelier, VT: Mercury product legislation has been adopted into law in at least four states and, since January 1, 2001, has been introduced in at least 13 states. A detailed comparison of key elements of proposed and existing state legislation on mercury products is at: http://www.mercurypolicy.org/new/documents/stateslegislation.pdf (It's in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format.) The Mercury Policy Project raises awareness about the threat of mercury contamination, and promotes policies to eliminate mercury uses. The Mercury Policy Project website, which has a vast amount of information on mercury and mercury reduction, is at: http://www.mercurypolicy.org/ -------------------- Link to the website for Germany's "Blue Angel" environmental labeling program, in English (first seen in the Rocky Mountain Institute newsletter): http://www.blauer-engel.de/Englisch/index.htm This program, a German federal government program created in the late 1970s, has awarded nearly 4,000 products the Blue Angel environmental label. A number of the product categories are related to waste prevention, such as fabric towel rolls in dispensers, returnable beverage bottle programs, and wall paints. For each product category, the program has established detailed standards that products must meet before they are awarded the Blue Angel label. To see these standards, click on "Products," then scroll through the list of categories. -------------------- From Heidi Siegelbaum, O'Neill and Siegelbaum, Seattle, WA, following up on previous postings about a new disposable cellular phone, made mostly from paper, which may be available by the end of the year: Here is the link to a 3/8/01 column by Dave Wilson in the Los Angeles Times about the phone: http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/ttimes/20010308/t000020343.html The person who conceived of this idea, Randice-Lisa Altschul, says that she's not responsible for our throw-away society. I don't know much about the impacts of cell phone manufacturing and disposal, but I suspect that once the paper is impregnated with circuitry that it would make it nearly impossible to reuse or recycle. Is anyone working on this? Thanks. Heidi's e-mail: wastenot [ A T ] speakeasy [ D O T ] org --------------------- From Karen Hamilton, King County Department of Finance, Environmental Purchasing Program, Seattle, WA, responding to the recent postings on safer alternatives to cleaning products for institutions, such as schools and government agencies: ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE CLEANING PRODUCTS - INSTITUTIONAL Some of these websites have already been mentioned, but I've found these very useful: Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Project, San Francisco Bay Area: http://www.westp2net.org/Janitorial/jp4.htm Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Cleaning Products Pilot Project: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp/cleaners/select/ National Parks Service - Yellowstone: http://www.epa.gov/unix0008/conservation_recycling/p2home/greengov/yellowcln/yellowcln.html State of Massachusetts - Request for Responses for Environmentally Preferable Cleaning Products: http://www.comm-pass.com/Comm-PASS/Scripts/xdoc_view.idc?doc_id=003688&cp_xx= State of Minnesota - Environmental Requirements to Cleaning Supplies Contract: http://www.moea.state.mn.us/lc/purchasing/cleaners.cfm Federal Service Supply and General Services Agency - Safer Products: http://www.fss.gsa.gov/environ/safer-chemicals.cfm City of Santa Monica - Custodial Product Bid Specifications: http://www.ci.santa-monica.ca.us/environment/policy/purchasing/bidspecs.htm Green Seal - Industrial and Institutional Cleaners: http://www.greenseal.org/standard/GS37.htm State of Washington Environmentally Responsible Cleaning Products - Environmental Criteria: http://www.metrokc.gov/procure/green/statewa.pdf E-mail: Karen (D O T) Hamilton (A T) metrokc (D O T) gov - end -