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22 Jun 01 - exchange promotion; C & D guides; SUVs; demolition reuse; corpse composting ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From David Allaway, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Portland, OR: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, in partnership with Metro (Portland), local governments, the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department, and the King County (WA)-based Pacific Northwest Industrial Materials Exchange (IMEX) is planning a promotion of materials exchanges to manufacturers in Oregon. The exchanges we will promote include IMEX and to a lesser extent CalMAX (California), as well as the five or so local (city/county) exchanges in Oregon. We have $65,000 to spend on outreach. Our promotions firm, KnollGROUP, is encouraging us to advertise materials exchanges in the Thomas Regional Directory. According to the KnollGROUP, the Thomas Directory is "the Bible" of purchasers of industrial supplies. I don't have any experience with this Directory. Before we invest a significant portion of our advertising budget in it, I would like to know if other subscribers to this list-serve have experience with the Thomas Directory, and particularly if you think that the Directory is or is not widely used by individuals in the manufacturing sector who are purchasing industrial products. Please respond via the list-serve or directly to me at: allaway [DOT] david [AT] deq [DOT] state [DOT] or [DOT] us If anyone wants to know more about this promotion campaign, I'd be happy to share more detail on it as well. Thanks. -------------------- From Dave Ghirardelli, Orange County Solid Waste, Chapel Hill, NC (forwarded by Blair Pollock): Does anyone have or know of a good construction "waste reduction" and/or "source separation for recycling" brochure written in Spanish? We need to do outreach to our local (Orange County, NC) construction industry in coordination with a proposed C&D (construction and demolition) recycling ordinance. Many of the workers in this industry speak limited or no English and we need to reach them. We would like to gather references as we develop our brochure. Good brochures in English would be welcome, too. Please e-mail me with any helpful information you're willing to provide. E-mail: dghirard (AT) co (DOT) orange (DOT) nc (DOT) us Phone: (919) 968-2800, extension 163 -------------------- A 6/5/01 column - about a protest against sport utility vehicles (SUVs) - by Bill McKibben in Grist, an online environmental magazine (forwarded by Marcia Rutan and Carl Woestwin): WHAT WOULD JESUS DRIVE? There are more scenic places for a demonstration - the Lincoln Memorial, say, or the lawn of the Capitol. But the Lynnway, an endless stretch of dreary light industry and heavy commerce just north of Boston, was perfect for our purposes. Not because of the greyhound racing track, not because of the discount furniture outlets. Because of the auto dealers, crowded with shiny SUVs. Every city in North America has a few of these automiles, where one lot butts up against the next, all crowded with this year's models. These lots are where Americans make the most environmentally significant decisions of their lives (except, perhaps, for how many kids to have). And that's why a hundred of us were there this past Saturday morning, in the pouring rain - to remind our neighbors that these private decisions have a public dimension. That in this case, how they spent their money was not absolutely their own business. That "Hey hey, ho ho, SUVs have got to go." The demonstration, endorsed by a dozen local groups and organized by Debra Hall and Marci Gerulis of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, was the first of its kind in the nation, an attempt to take anti-SUV bumper-sticker and ticket campaigns to a new level. It also marked a new level of religious involvement in the cause - at least four ministers from various denominations were on hand, including Bob Massie, an Episcopal priest who also heads CERES, Fred Small, director of Religious Witness for the Earth, and Dan Smith, a Congregational minister who won the prize for the day's best poster: "What Would Jesus Drive?" The morning began with a few speeches and songs, before participants, led by a parade of seven hybrid Toyotas and Hondas, began walking a soggy picket line in front of the auto dealers. A rented SUV, whose back window read "Just Married - to the Gas Pump" dragged a dozen gas cans along the pavement behind it. Passing motorists honked, car shoppers gawked - and dealership employees looked on with interest. At least one dealer, forewarned by demonstration organizers, had moved his big SUVs to the back of the lot and arranged his small models along the street - and a hybrid Toyota Prius in the place of honor by the road. Interest in the demonstration went beyond the dealers. Both GM and Ford conducted conference calls with local dealers in the days leading up to the demonstration, which received large-scale coverage in the Boston Globe, the Lynn paper, the Christian Science Monitor, the Palm Beach Post, and other papers. Ford also dispatched boxes of its "Corporate Citizenship Report" to dealers, which set up one of the day's more memorable moments. Massie, whose advice has been sought by Ford in recent years, went into a dealership to talk with the owner, and was handed one of the reports - which included an essay Massie had authored and his own picture, featured prominently. Organizers said they hoped the demonstrations would continue in the Boston area, albeit on sunnier days, and that they would spread the campaign to other locales. Not everyone can get to the Lincoln Memorial - but, like it or not, every American is within striking distance of an SUV dealer. ------------------- Link to an article by Paul Glader in the 6/21/01 Indianapolis Star about demolition reuse: http://www.indystar.com/print/citystate/thu/articles/concrete21.html The article describes how Market Square Arena (former home of the Indianapolis Pacers basketball team) is being demolished, and there are plans to reuse some of the concrete chunks from the arena to create a downhill snow-tubing park. ------------------- Excerpted from a message from Jim McNelly, NaturTech Composting Systems, St. Cloud, MN, on the U.S. Composting Council listserv, responding to the news item (posted on the Forum 6/21/01) about composting human corpses (forwarded by Josh Marx): Our NaturTech containerized composters have been used to successfully compost dead chickens, turkeys and pigs up to 900 pounds, without grinding. There is no reason to believe that a 200-pound human could not also be composted. I don't see the need for the chemical stage of liquid nitrogen prior to composting as used in Sweden, except as it may reduce the volume of material to be decomposed. The process takes about 20 days with an additional 60 days of curing. The only signs of the corpse in the compost are some hair and teeth. Flesh decomposes within 7 days, bones within 14. I know this is all very grisly, but so is cremation and so is burial. Draining blood and pumping the body full of toxic formaldehyde or even more toxic chemicals for embalming is not very exciting either. The bereaved do not need to know or care about the details. We are talking about an important public service that is far superior to the ancient and arcane death rituals that pollute our air, ground and water. I too want my remains composted after organs are donated, so it may be up to me to help start the business. Dealing with human mortalities may be the last great social taboo to be addressed by an enlightened populace. Most of our burial practices have not changed in over 4,000 years, largely derived from the Egyptian concept of preservation of the flesh for reuse in the afterlife. My belief system tells me that the body is dead meat requiring waste management technology prior to beneficial reuse as plant nutrients. The bottom line is that composting dead human bodies is technically feasible and safe regarding public health and environmental quality. The composting industry can supply the equipment, but starting the business of composting human mortalities is not for the faint of heart. I don't know if composting would work in conjunction with or in competition with the cremators. How about a new term, the biotorium, to describe where the bodies are sent? I am open to suggestions, including to forget the idea. E-mail: compost [A T] cloudnet [D O T] com - end -