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30 Apr 01 - curriculum; California reuse grants; computers; waste-free in Japan; mercury; PVC ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Keri (Morin) Handaly, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), solid waste education program, Portland, OR, responding to the recent postings about the column by John Tierney in the New York Times (posted 4/23/01), attacking a new New York City Department of Sanitation waste reduction manual for the city's schools: Now that I've read some responses to the Tierney article, I'd like to weigh in on the topic. His comments, while obviously extremely conservative, did ring home a bit. This is because I have been revising and updating Oregon DEQ's Solid Waste curriculum for the past 9 months. The curriculum focuses a great deal on waste prevention. I immediately imagined conservative Oregonians writing similar letters of protest that DEQ would produce such a curriculum. (On that note, let me say that the legislature actually directed us to produce a curriculum to help the state meet its 50 percent recovery goal by 2000). After imagining such an attack, I assured myself that, in fact, I have tried to present a balanced view of the issues, like the fact that manufacturing virgin products causes pollution, but so does recycling, and in some cases, like glass, we could achieve more efficiency by refilling and reusing glass rather than just recycling it, and the reason that aluminum recycling saves so much pollution is because it is SO energy intensive to produce in the first place. As much as I would love to advocate this behavior over that behavior, I think that children should be given the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons of making various choices and conclude that sometimes there just isn't a black and white answer. Hopefully, (in my utopic vision of the future), children will come to the conclusion that the current method of dealing with waste or other environmental problems is not necessarily the "right" way, and they'll learn to think outside of discrete boxes that liberals and conservatives alike have happily painted for them. E-mail: MORIN [ DOT ] Keri [ AT ] deq [ DOT ] state [ DOT ] or [ DOT ] us -------------------- From Sarah Weimer, California Integrated Waste Management Board, Sacramento, CA: ANNOUNCEMENT OF CALIFORNIA REUSE GRANT AWARDS The California Integrated Waste Management Board is awarding the following six applicants with a 2nd Cycle Reuse Assistance Grant. The grant recipients, amount awarded, and project descriptions are as follows: City of Arcata - $50,000 Expand an existing reuse facility (the nonprofit Arcata Community Recycling Center's Reusables Depot) to salvage and reuse construction and demolition materials beyond its current capability. Also establish the Reusables Depot as a source of affordable building materials for residents of Arcata and surrounding Humboldt County. City of Lomita - $28,168 Expand an existing program to provide services to the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, partnering with the City of Rancho Palos Verdes, City of Torrance, and City of Redondo Beach. This project will divert edible food not sold at restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and other establishments from landfills, to Food Finders, a nonprofit organization that will allocate this edible food to organizations that help meet the nutritional needs of impoverished persons. City of Los Angeles - $45,361 Perform outreach to the commercial sector to relieve local businesses of outdated office equipment, inventory surplus and discontinued items, which are still functional, by directing them to Los Angeles' nonprofit reuse agencies who have a distribution network and infrastructure in place. County of Sacramento - $50,000 Establish a new Habitat for Humanity ReStore to serve the Sacramento area, which should be entirely self-sufficient within 18 months of operation. Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority - $48,352 Produce the site planning, permitting, and legal documents for a Resource Recovery Park to be co-located and concurrently developed with the Del Norte Transfer Station/Materials Recovery Facility. This project will also support the procurement of an energy-efficient refrigerator for a Food Bank program run by a local nonprofit organization, the Community Assistance Network. University of California, Berkeley - $28,119 Establish a materials exchange program on the University of California, Berkeley campus to be run by paid student interns. In addition to the Reuse Assistance Grants, the Board has an ever-growing list of reuse resources, which are available on the Board's Reuse Web site at: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/reuse/ E-mail: sweimer (A T) ciwmb (D O T) ca (D O T) gov -------------------- From Sandy Grant, Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment, Santa Monica, CA: Regarding the comment about getting computer programmers to reduce the amount of paper that has to be printed with each e-mail (4/25/01 posting), one possible approach might be to contact Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. They have a Working Group on Computing and the Environment. Their website is at: http://www.cpsr.org/program/environment/index.html E-mail: sgrant51 (A T) earthlink (D O T) net -------------------- Excerpted from a 4/26/01 news release from the ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives) Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland: The mayor of Kamakura, the third Imperial City of Japan (next to Kyoto and Nara), has personally committed to change the waste management system. Kamakura, a city of 150,000, produces 120 to 150 tons of solid waste per day. There are two incinerators operating at present, worsening the dioxin level. To facilitate bringing this level to zero, the mayor's goal is to close the first of the two incinerators by the year 2002, simply by drastically reducing waste at the source. He expects the ZERI network to contribute to a fundamental solution so that Kamakura can become the first waste-free city in Japan. In line with the ZERI concept, this means that value would be added to all waste to produce useful products. The ZERI Foundation is a non-profit organization, established under Swiss law in 1996, with a multinational network of academics, businesspeople, bureaucrats, and educators finding creative solutions to the most pressing challenges of our times: Responding to the needs of all on Earth in terms of water, food, housing, health care, energy and jobs. The ZERI Foundation's goal is the efficient production of all the goods and services that society needs without any form of waste - no liquid waste, no gaseous waste, and no solid waste. For more information, see their website at: http://www.zeri.org -------------------- Excerpted from a press release on the website of Health Care Without Harm, Falls Church, VA: MINNESOTA BANS MERCURY THERMOMETER SALES On April 26, 2001, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura signed legislation that will virtually eliminate the sales and distribution of thermometers that contain mercury. Inappropriate disposal of thermometers and other mercury-containing products is a major source of mercury emissions to the environment, although coal-burning power plants are the top polluter. Once mercury enters the environment, microorganisms in lakes and rivers convert it to the more toxic methylmercury, where it builds up in fish and wildlife. Mercury can cause neurological damage. Most human exposure to mercury comes through eating fish. Pregnant women, women of childbearing age, and young children are particularly at risk from mercury exposure. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences noted in a recent report that more than 60,000 children annually may be at risk for learning disabilities because of mercury-contaminated fish eaten by their mothers during pregnancy. Over 90 percent of the Minnesota lakes and rivers that have been tested receive fish consumption advisories due to mercury contamination, totaling over 800 in 2000. Each fever thermometer contains approximately one gram of mercury, which may not seem like much. But collectively, thermometers are a significant source, and it doesn't take much mercury to contaminate fish. The current levels of fish contamination are caused by air deposition of one gram of mercury per 20 acres of water. In a related item, the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, MN, is planning a creative promotion on Mother's Day to encourage people to turn in the mercury thermometers they have at home. On Mother's Day, May 13, moms get in free with any paid admission. Also, the first 500 people who bring in their mercury fever thermometers or mercury basal thermometers will get a free non-mercury replacement thermometer. For more information, see the Health Care Without Harm website at: http://www.noharm.org Click on "Breaking News" at the top. You can also click on "Mercury" for extensive information on this issue. The Mercury section includes the text of local ordinances that ban the retail sale of mercury fever thermometers. -------------------- Link to Greenpeace's new international database of alternatives to construction products made from PVC (polyvinyl chloride) (first seen on Jim DiPeso's Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center news service): http://www.greenpeace.org/~toxics/pvcdatabase/index.html - end -