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02 May 01 - reusables in school lunchrooms; UC-Berkeley reuse; phones ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Ann Dorfman, Concord Public Works, Concord, MA: Our town is undergoing a massive school renovation project and will be rebuilding all six schools. This seems like the perfect time to do some research and compare the cost of purchasing and disposing of Styrofoam plates, cups, trays, etc. used in all the school lunchrooms to the cost of purchasing and washing reusable plates, cups, trays, etc. Does anyone know of a cost comparison done recently on this? One of our custodians complains that almost one third of his dumpster is Styrofoam. E-mail: adorfman [ A T ] concordnet [ D O T ] org Phone: (978) 318-3241 ------------------- From Barbara Frierson, City of Fremont, CA, responding to the 4/30/01 posting about reuse grants from the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which include a $28,119 grant to the University of California at Berkeley, to establish a materials exchange program on the campus, to be run by paid student interns: I think it's pretty ironic that UC Berkeley received a grant to open a reuse center on campus. Last I heard (about a month ago), the university was trying to evict the decades-old and highly successful non-profit East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse from one of their off-campus properties. Right hand / left hand problem at UC? E-mail: BFrierson [ AT ] ci [ DOT ] fremont [ DOT ] ca [ DOT ] us -------------------- Link to the website for CollectiveGood International, an Atlanta-based mobile phone recycling company that works with charities to develop partnership programs to collect and reuse old mobile phones (first seen in the May, 2001, Green Business Letter): http://www.collectivegood.com CollectiveGood refurbishes the collected phones at its facility in Southeastern Kentucky. The company says that initially, they will sell the refurbished phones in Latin America, at 33-50 percent less than the cost of new phones. The company says the phones will be targeted to countries where the average income is less than $3,000 per capita. Note from Tom: Information on another program to collect and reuse wireless phones (to assist victims of domestic violence) is at: http://www.donateaphone.com (This program has been mentioned in the Forum several times in the past.) - end -