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03 Jul 01 - office paper reduction; NRC conference; Starbucks; furniture ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Heather Sarantis, University of Montana: I am a graduate student at the University of Montana in Environmental Studies and am beginning my final project. The project is to be a tool to help companies and agencies reduce their paper consumption. Specifically, I am hoping to find out what has been done already in terms of similar endeavors and documentation of an organization's process. I am especially interested in exploring if there are any companies or agencies that have been successful in reducing paper use - especially office paper (copier, printer paper) - that would be willing to participate in a case study. Does anyone have any leads? Thank you. E-mail: heathersarantis (A T) hotmail (D O T) com -------------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and National Waste Prevention Coalition: NRC CONFERENCE COMING UP IN SEATTLE I just wanted to make a pitch for people to consider coming to the National Recycling Congress, which will be held this year in Seattle Sept. 30 - Oct. 3, sponsored by the National Recycling Coalition (NRC). I have been involved in some of the planning, and I think it will be a killer conference. It will include a significant number of sessions, tours, etc., related to waste prevention, and there will also be all the usual great recycling stuff. The waste prevention (reduction and reuse) sessions and activities include: - The Reuse Development Organization (ReDO) will host a Reuse Workshop (on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 30), moderated by ReDO executive director Julie Rhodes. This "nuts and bolts" workshop will feature speakers from around the country, and will help people learn how reuse programs actually get funded, start up, operate day-to-day, expand, and sustain themselves over the long term. - A plenary session: "The Triple Bottom Line Business Strategy - Leaders in the Corporate Stewardship Movement." According to NRC, this session "will feature a panel of chief executives from companies that have incorporated product stewardship plans into their business plans and corporate cultures." - An "interactive" session called, "Does Waste Prevention Matter? The Relevance of Reuse and Reduction for the 21st Century." I'll be moderating, we'll have a great panel from across the nation, and there will be lots of audience participation. We'll try to discuss some of the "big issues" for waste prevention, in a way that will help us in our day-to-day work. - Other sessions: "The Movement to Zero Waste"; "How Recycling and Source Reduction Can Reduce Global Warming"; "Eliminating Mercury from the Waste Stream." - A "reuse and sustainability" tour on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 3. The tour will visit: King Street Center, a new King County office building that has the largest installation of reused carpet in the U.S., exchange areas for used office supplies, and many other examples of resource conservation and recycling; a used building materials store, where the store's staff will describe marketing, materials acquisition and other details of the operation; and a deconstruction job site, where you'll see how crews actually remove fixtures from a home or building, so they can be resold. There are a lot more sessions, tours, social events, etc. They're expecting about 2,000 people for the conference. Hope you all can make it. For more information, you could try the NRC website at: http://www.nrc-recycle.org Unfortunately, this website is very challenging to negotiate, so you have to be persistent, and patient. You could also try calling the main NRC office for information, at (703) 683-9025. -------------------- Excerpted from the Starbucks Corp. website (first seen in the Washington Free Press): Since the early 1990s, Starbucks has had a "Green Team," a group of employees that advises the company on ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. For example, the Green Team has been a strong advocate for using reusable ceramic, glass and commuter mugs. With this simple act - using a reusable coffee mug - Starbucks customers can make a considerable impact. If only 50 customers a day in every store were to use reusable mugs, Starbucks would save 150,000 disposable paper cups daily! This equals 1.7 million pounds of paper, 3.7 million pounds of solid waste, and 15,000 trees a year. In 2000, Starbucks customers saved over 3,600 trees by using their commuter mugs more than 13 million times. Starbucks also promotes the use of coffee grounds to make compost. We provide coffee grounds to gardening customers who request them from our stores. Coffee grounds have a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 20:1, similar to grass clippings and good for gardens and composting. Now gardens are healthier, and we've successfully reduced our waste. For more information about composting with coffee grounds, see this Starbucks web page: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/compost.asp This page includes a brief analysis of the nutrients in coffee grounds. -------------------- Link to an article by Marni Leff in the 6/28/01 Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a Seattle-area company that makes "environmentally-friendly" office furniture (forwarded by Lynn Warner): http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/business/29152_furniture28.shtml The company, Brandrud Furniture, has reduced the toxics in its products, and donates excess fabric to children's museums and day care centers. - end -