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09 Oct 01 - ULS Report; consumption; conference; computers; toolkit; smaller businesses; C & D ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Bob Lilienfeld, Cygnus Group, Ann Arbor, MI: Hi, folks. I have been getting many requests to both post back issues of The ULS (Use Less Stuff) Report and to start up again. I will be doing the former, and am thinking about the latter as well. I will have to find some financial resources to start publishing again, though. Please give me a few days to set up electronically, and I will notify you about the new web address and ongoing progress. Some of you may know that I was at the World Trade Center in New York City on the morning of September 11, and witnessed much of what happened. I am lucky to be writing this. Because of this event, I have also decided to re-align my priorities, and see the need to help remind people of the economic, environmental and yes, even moral value, of wasting less. I will still be focusing on waste prevention, especially energy conservation. I have some advice for those of you who are focusing on issues related to materialism: My experience tells me that you can't cut something out of people's lives without offering them a replacement. In your work, please help people find something to run to, rather than away from. Give them tangible suggestions about what to do, as well. That's it for now. Happy to be back. E-mail: bob [A T] cygnus-group [D O T] com -------------------- From Julie Rhodes, Reuse Development Organization (ReDO), Indianapolis, IN, responding to the 10/5/01 posting about the implications of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on Americans' attitudes toward consumption: I think many people are feeling the same dilemma between simplifying and consumption - getting back to those things that are important in life - people, not stuff. While, at the same time, our president is asking us to spend, spend, spend to boost the economy, but that doesn't seem to be happening. So, I suspect it will be the downturn in the economy (and the uncertainty people feel about the future), and not peoples' drive towards voluntary simplicity in the wake of the disaster, that reduces consumption during this time. I've had conversations with several folks in the past few weeks regarding how interesting it is that our economy is based solely on consumption, and consumer confidence is based solely on spending. Seems somehow backwards if we want a sustainable economy. E-mail: jlrhodes [ AT ] in [ DOT ] net -------------------- From Maggie Clarke, Hunter College, New York, NY: The events of Sept. 11 gave me temporary amnesia about something pretty important, that I should have alerted everyone to before now. As Vice Chair, I put together a new website for the Waste Management Division of the Air and Waste Management Association (AWMA). On this site you can find the listing of our 17 sessions, several of which deal with upper waste management hierarchy issues, for the June, 2002, conference in Baltimore. There's a link from there to the place at AWMA's website for immediate submission of abstracts for these sessions. Click on: http://everest.hunter.cuny.edu/~mclarke/awma-wm.htm AWMA has given us until this Friday (October 12) to increase our abstracts. (That's an extended deadline.) If you find a session of interest, and are doing research pertinent to that, please do submit an abstract. Also, feel free to refer your colleagues to the site. If you have any questions, please let me know. E-mail: mclarke [ A T ] shiva [ D O T ] hunter [ D O T ] cuny [ D O T ] edu -------------------- Link to an article by Judy Heim in the October, 2001, issue of PC World magazine about the reuse and recycling (mostly reuse) of personal computers: http://www.pcworld.com/features/article/0,aid,58266,pg,1,00.asp Also be sure to check out the resources that accompanying this article, which include: - Charitable Checklist: http://www.pcworld.com/features/article/0,aid,58266,pg,2,00.asp - Attic Alternatives: http://www.pcworld.com/features/article/0,aid,58266,pg,3,00.asp -------------------- The next three resources were all first seen in the October, 2001, WasteCap Wisconsin E-mail Bulletin. -------------------- Link to the Community Waste Prevention Toolkit from INFORM, Inc., a New York City-based environmental research organization: http://www.informinc.org/cwasteprev.htm This website is designed to help community leaders and grassroots environmental organizations launch effective solid waste prevention programs in their towns and cities. It offers extensive resources, including fact sheets on minimizing waste and pollution from these waste streams: Batteries; carpeting; computers; construction and demolition materials; and toner cartridges. -------------------- Link to the guide, "Greening Your Business: A Primer for Smaller Companies," from the GreenBiz.com website: http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/essentials_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=15205 -------------------- Link to resources for reducing, reusing and recycling construction and demolition (C&D) debris, from the WasteCap Wisconsin website: http://www.wastecapwi.org/condemo.htm These resources include a briefing paper on this issue (in Adobe Portable Document Format), and sample construction waste management specifications. - end -