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18 Jun 01 - expert panel; credit card mailings; magazines; schools contracts ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Betsy Dorn, R. W. Beck consulting firm: The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FL DEP) has awarded a grant in the amount of $228,000 to identify effective waste reduction strategies implemented across the country that have applicability in Florida, and to develop methodologies for measuring the impact of those activities. FL DEP will evaluate the findings of this project to determine defensible measurement strategies that can be adopted by the State to permit local governments to account for waste reduction and reuse in calculating their progress toward achieving the State waste reduction goal. The project is being undertaken by R. W. Beck on behalf of the State of Florida and Polk County, where waste reduction measurement methods will be field-tested. R. W. Beck is seeking the assistance of the members of this listserv, the Waste Prevention Forum, to identify representatives from across the country to serve as a panel of national "expert" advisors for this project. Selected panelists will be expected to participate in a full-day work session in Florida, with reimbursement provided for travel expenses. During the work session, advisory panel members will be asked to help identify waste reduction programs suitable for implementation in Florida and means by which other communities or businesses have successfully measured the impacts of such waste reduction/reuse activities in the past. In addition, panel members will be asked to suggest criteria for defining successful program implementation and potential waste reduction programs to be pilot-tested. If anyone has suggestions of individuals to serve on this advisory panel, please supply contact information to Betsy Dorn via e-mail at bdorn (AT) rwbeck (DOT) com or by telephone (in North Carolina) at (919) 387-1185. -------------------- Excerpted from a business column by Bill Virgin in the 6/11/01 Seattle Post Intelligencer: - Last year the credit card industry sent out 3.5 billion pieces of mail, according to the market research firm BAIGlobal Inc. That's more than triple the number sent out in 1990. In the fourth quarter of 2000 alone, they sent out a billion mailings. - BAIGlobal says the response rate on those 3.5 billion mailings was .6 percent (that's right, fewer than 1 in a hundred generate a response), down from as high as 2.8 percent in 1992. Why the slowdown in responses? It may be that even plastic-happy spendaholic Americans can be sated. CardWeb.com Inc. says the major credit card brands have issued 538.1 million cards, a stunning achievement for a country with a population of 280 million. - CardWeb says the average U.S. household credit card debt is $8,123. The full column is at: http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/virgin/26829_virgin11.shtml -------------------- Excerpted from a 6/17/01 Associated Press business article by Seth Sutel: Nearly two out of every three magazines on newsstands will be destroyed (recycled or disposed of), victims of the backward economics of magazine distribution. Despite dwindling sales, publishers still flood newsstands with far too many copies in hopes of edging circulation numbers higher to please advertisers. But now that advertising has slumped after a decade-long surge, publishers are thinking that they can no longer gloss over their problems at the newsstand. "The boom in advertising allowed publishers to turn a blind eye to many of the circulation problems," said John Harrington, president of Harrington Associates, a consulting firm in Norwalk, Conn. "Now, the publishers have really got to look at the whole circulation structure and say, `Can I reconstruct it?' " Dan Capell, an industry consultant in Ridgewood, N.J., who specializes in circulation issues, calls the magazine-distribution business "something out of the Middle Ages" that is long due for a sweeping overhaul. "I think you're at a critical point where magazines can no longer justify the expense of maintaining high circulations when the ad revenues aren't there to justify it," he said. "The economics are changing overnight." The drop in magazine ad pages deepened as the industry posted a 16.9 percent falloff last month compared with May 2000. The double-digit downturn followed drops of 9.5 percent in April and 8.1 percent in March and put the year-to-date loss at 9.4 percent. Last month the industry hired an economics consulting firm to study inefficiencies in the newsstand system, while next month the Audit Bureau of Circulations is due to approve an overhaul of its circulation rules. The most direct way of addressing the problem is simply to cut the circulation figure that publishers promise to advertisers, but that has its downsides. Advertisers don't like it because they reach fewer people, while publishers see it as an embarrassing sign that they're losing their audience. Another option is to raise prices for readers and advertisers. If things keep going the way they are, more and more smaller magazines may be shut down, says Chip Block, publishing strategist at Ziff Davis Media. "There's so much product out there that publishers are going to have to look at their weaker products and ask whether they should be publishing this magazine at all." ---------------------- Excerpted from an announcement from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Boston, MA (forwarded by Stephen Long): Massachusetts DEP has issued a Request for Responses (RFR) for the Recycling Education Assistance for Public Schools (REAPS) program. The goals of the REAPS program are to expand and maintain an educational program in Massachusetts that will: 1. Increase awareness of why and how to use the 3 R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) of the waste management hierarchy among students, teachers, school administrators and parents; 2. Initiate or increase participation in recycling, composting and other waste reduction activities by students, teachers, school administrators and parents; 3. Track the number and types of recycling, composting and other waste reduction programs in public schools and identify schools with such programs. Through this RFR, DEP is seeking qualified individuals or organizations to provide the following services: Program administration and school recycling club management (full time); Classroom presentations; Assembly presentations; Teacher trainings; Technical assistance on start-up and operation of recycling, composting and other waste reduction programs in schools; Curriculum development. DEP anticipates awarding multiple contracts for these services. In their response to this RFR, interested parties may bid on one, several or all of the above services. The proposal deadline is July 23, 2001. The RFR is available on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Internet Procurement Access & Solicitation System at http://www.Comm-PASS.com Scroll down to the "Open Solicitations" category. Click on "By Purchasing Entity." Scroll down and click on "Department of Environmental Protection." Click on "Professional Services," then on the REAPS RFR. - end -