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22 Feb 02 - caterers; NYC; consumption; Minnesota; manual; other forums; quote ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- From Laurie Stoerkel, West Contra Costa Integrated Waste Management Authority, San Pablo, CA: SEEKING ADVICE FOR CATERERS ON WASTE REDUCTION We are hosting a festival on Earth Day. We have requested that our caterers provide vegetarian waste with little or no packaging. For our event, on April 20th, we have given them specific guidelines. I was hoping to provide them with additional information, educational pamphlets, names of professional organizations, etc., that might help them understand some of the larger issues in waste reduction. I would like to educate them in the hopes that they will develop skills that they may use when catering other, non-Earth Day events. Can you recommend any articles, publications or organizations where I might find these materials? E-mail: lauries ( AT ) recyclemore ( DOT ) com -------------------- Excerpted from a column by John Tierney in the 2/15/02 New York Times, supporting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to suspend the recycling of cans and bottles in the city (forwarded by Jetta Wallace and Marcia Rutan): Recycling has become a sacrament of atonement for buying too much stuff - for secretly loving stuff too much. Sinners have every right to repent, but in this country religious sacraments are not supposed to be legally mandated or publicly subsidized. Recycling bottles and cans in New York City next year would cost taxpayers more than $50 million. Why don't its devotees find another ritual of atonement that might help the environment and save the city money? Suppose that all the time and money spent exhorting children and adults to recycle were spent instead urging each New Yorker to pick up one piece of litter each day. Millions of pieces of trash would disappear; street-cleaning bills would plummet. Perhaps guilty consumers could get used to paying for their sins with cash. Environmentalists could urge the end of free trash collection. If people had to pay for each can of trash they produced, they'd find ways to reduce waste, and the city budget would benefit. Or suppose environmentalists channeled their zeal for recycling into another political cause: putting tolls on the East River bridges. These tolls would have economic virtues, while also reducing air pollution and fuel consumption by easing traffic congestion. The recycling program, by contrast, increases local air pollution and fuel consumption by putting extra trucks on the roads to collect bottles and cans. Could the act of paying a toll be turned into a sacrament? Could children and adults be trained to regard the toll as penance for the extravagance of owning a gas-guzzling, polluting machine? Some recycling devotees might not be satisfied. Paying a toll on the East River bridges might seem too simple, too antiseptic, too easy by comparison with the mortification of sorting garbage. For these ascetics, maybe the best ritual would be for them to get out of their cars altogether and walk across the bridges, possibly on their knees. For extra penance, these pilgrims could carry sacks filled with old bottles and cans. -------------------- Link to "Addicted to Stuff," an article by Aaron Tassano in the 2/18/02 San Francisco Examiner (forwarded by Alexandra Scott): http://www.examiner.com/ex_files/default.jsp?story=X0218AFFLUENZAw This article includes a checklist to aid potential sufferers of "Affluenza" in diagnosing their acquisition addiction. -------------------- Link to a report on Recycling and Waste Reduction in Minnesota, published in January, 2002 by the State of Minnesota's Office of the Legislative Auditor, Program Evaluation Division (first seen in the WasteCap Wisconsin bulletin): http://www.auditor.leg.state.mn.us/ped/2002/pe0201.htm Among the report's conclusions: "Minnesota has a better recycling rate than most other states. But, Minnesota did not meet the Legislature's statewide goal to reduce per capita waste generation by 10 percent between 1993 and 2000. Instead, per capita waste generation increased by 22 percent during this time." -------------------- Link to "Strategic Waste Prevention," a reference manual published in August, 2000, by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Environment Directorate, Paris, France (forwarded by Burton Hamner): http://www1.oecd.org/env/online-pollut.htm Under "Strategic Waste Prevention," click on the British flag (which indicates the report is in English). -------------------- From Karen Higgins, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles, CA: Since this Forum deals just with waste prevention (reduction and reuse), can any of the Forum members recommend any other good forums dealing with general recycling issues? Maybe it would be a good idea to run this information every once in awhile to give people outlets for their recycling questions that crop up here. Thanks! E-mail: KHIGGI [AT] LADWP [DOT] com Note from Tom: Good idea! I do have to reject postings for this Forum sometimes if they deal solely with recycling. So, if people let us know about some e-mail forums on recycling that I can refer people to, that would be great. (We do run postings that include information about recycling, if it relates to waste prevention.) -------------------- From a 2/19/02 article by John Marshall in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about Edward O. Wilson, author of a new book about the environment called "The Future of Life": The article includes this quote from Wilson: "The question of the century is, how best can we shift to a culture of permanence, both for ourselves and for the biosphere that sustains us?... For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths." - Edward O. Wilson, retired Harvard University professor and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner The entire article is at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/58511_wilson19.shtml - end -