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23 Aug 01 - waste audits; mercury; California grants; leftover paint; subway cars ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Victor Aguiar, Ecology Action, Santa Cruz, CA, responding to the 8/16/01 posting seeking examples of a municipal grant program, where the municipality offers a grant to a non-profit or for-profit company to partially fund the development of a waste audit: I lead a program for the County of Santa Cruz (California), providing waste auditing in the Industrial/Commercial/Institutional sector. We have implemented this program for over five years, and have also provided auditing on behalf of the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority, the City of San Francisco, and directly for businesses. This started with grants, and has since been executed under contract. We have developed software for implementing these projects, which we have provided to other jurisdictions, for whom we have also given trainings. A demo of the software and description of our program are on our web site: http://www.ecoact.org (Click on WasteNot Business Solutions.) E-mail: vaguiar [AT] ecoact [DOT] org -------------------- From Sandra Thorp Nussbaum, Hennepin County Environmental Services, Minneapolis, MN, following up on the 8/21/01 posting about the Minnesota Retired Engineers Technical Assistance Program (Minnesota RETAP), which provides waste reduction assessments and other assistance to businesses and institutions: Here is the link to the website for WRATT, the Waste Reduction And Technology Transfer Foundation, administrators of the recently-launched Minnesota RETAP: http://www.wratt.org E-mail: sandra [ DOT ] nussbaum [ AT ] co [ DOT ] hennepin [ DOT ] mn [ DOT ] us -------------------- Link to information on new mercury reduction laws in six states, from the website of Health Care Without Harm, Falls Church, VA: http://www.noharm.org/index.cfm?page_ID=14 In the past four months, these six states have passed mercury reduction laws: Oregon, Rhode Island, Maine, Maryland, Indiana and Minnesota. This web page has links to the full text of each law. --------------------- From Sarah Weimer, California Integrated Waste Management Board, Sacramento, CA: REUSE GRANTS FOR CALIFORNIA AGENCIES The California Integrated Waste Management Board is offering $250,000 for the 3rd Cycle of the Reuse Assistance Grants to provide incentives for local public agencies in California to promote and apply the concept of reuse in their community. All cities, counties, special districts, and regional agencies that have the authority to provide solid waste handling services are eligible to apply individually or regionally, and may partner with any entity or entities that seek to promote the concept of reuse and to establish new or expanded opportunities for reuse in California. Questions must be sent in writing via e-mail or Postal Service. For more information, or to download the application, visit: http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Reuse/ E-mail: sweimer ( A T ) ciwmb ( D O T ) ca ( D O T ) gov Mailing address: California Integrated Waste Management Board Reuse Assistance Grants Program, MS-14 P.O. Box 4025 Sacramento, CA 95812-4025 -------------------- Link to a National Paint & Coatings Association web page on leftover paint: http://www.paint.org/con_info/6point.htm This page gives tips on how to reduce the amount of leftover paint you have, and what to do with leftover paint. Note from Tom: Related to this subject, I recently learned about a Canadian product called Waste Paint Hardener, for latex and acrylic paints. This product mostly just makes disposal of leftover paint easier, but in some cases it may help reduce waste (by making spills easier to clean up, without using so many rags, for example). Here is the web page for this product: http://www.biowash.com/products/WPH.html I actually heard about this from a guy with a local business trying to figure out the best way to recycle or dispose of their leftover paint. He tried this product, and this is how he described it in an e-mail: "It's like Viagra for paint - you stir it in and it's hard in 20 minutes." -------------------- Excerpted from an article by Randy Kennedy in the 8/22/01 New York Times: END OF LINE FOR SUBWAY CARS: THE OCEAN FLOOR Hundreds of old New York City subway cars are being dumped into the ocean, off the coasts of Delaware and South Carolina, to be reused as artificial reefs. The idea is that the sunken subway cars will provide attractive homes for sea creatures such as blue mussels and black sea bass. About 1,300 rusting subway cars are being retired over the next two years. Because the old cars contain a layer of asbestos within their walls for sound and heat insulation, tearing them apart for junk metal would have involved a costly process of asbestos removal. So, transit officials first explored the idea of donating the cars to a needier subway system. They called around the world, talking to Romania, Hungary, China, Brazil, India, Pakistan and Turkey, but figured out that it was far from simple, legally and diplomatically, to give away an 80,000-pound, asbestos-spiked subway car. Even after the reef idea was broached, finding a nice stretch of ocean floor for the cars was not easy. In April, New Jersey officials rejected the idea for their waters, citing uncertainty about how quickly the cars would deteriorate under the water and possibly allow the asbestos to contaminate sea life. But in June, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control accepted the idea, and agreed to take 400 cars, after assurances from the United States Environmental Protection Agency that the idea was safe, and from transit officials that the cars would be properly cleaned of grease and other toxins. South Carolina has agreed to take an additional 300 cars, and transit officials are in discussions with New York State, Virginia and Georgia about taking the rest. This week, the first batch of 27 old subway cars were taken by barge to a location 19 miles off the coast of Delaware and dumped into the ocean. The cars had been stripped of their wheels, motors, seats and window glass. Most of the metal straps upon which generations of straphangers hung remained on board. The reef, Delaware officials explained, needed as many hard surfaces as possible to create "an enriched invertebrate community" where once a tense, overcrowded New Yorker community had thrived. ------------------ Note from Tom: I will be out of the office next week, so there will be no installments of the Forum during that time. Thanks! - end -