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20 Mar 02 - electronics; LEED; ode to scavenging; deconstruction; Earth ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- Excerpted from a 3/19/02 press release from the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (forwarded by Sego Jackson): "FRONT-END" FINANCING SYSTEM TO BE DEVELOPED FOR USED ELECTRONICS Representatives from electronics manufacturers, government agencies, environmental groups, and others have achieved a major milestone in the development of a joint nationwide plan for managing used electronics. In their fourth meeting on March 11-12 in Washington, D.C., all stakeholders in the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) agreed to work toward the establishment of a financing system that will include the costs of managing used electronic products in the overall purchase price of new electronic products. The agreement commits the stakeholders to work on the development of a "front-end financed system" and to develop an agreed action plan for establishing this system that includes federal legislation needed to facilitate it. The action plan will also include steps that can be taken during the period before the "front-end" system is in place nationally that will improve existing systems for managing used electronics and prepare for the new financing system. The NEPSI participants identified several challenging issues remaining to be resolved, including the timeframe for starting the front-end financed system, how to make the system convenient for consumers, whether it can provide incentives for product design, and how the costs and responsibilities for collection, reuse, and recycling will be shared among producers, retailers, consumers, and governments. The group also discussed the serious issue of the export of used electronics from the U.S. They agreed that the NEPSI Dialogue will make recommendations on how to address this problem in the development of the new nationwide system for used electronics management. The National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative, organized in April of last year, consists of 45 participants, split evenly among industry, government, and a third group that includes environmental groups, recyclers, and retailers. The NEPSI group's main goal for the dialogue is "the development of a system, which includes a viable financing mechanism, to maximize the collection, reuse, and recycling of used electronics, while considering appropriate incentives to design products that facilitate source reduction, reuse and recycling; reduce toxicity; and increase recycled content." This "product stewardship" initiative involves a sharing of responsibility for the reuse and recycling of electronics by those who produce, sell, and use these products. The NEPSI group has agreed to meet three more times over the next six months. Participants hope that this dialogue will result in a voluntary national agreement by September. The next meeting is scheduled for June in St. Paul, Minnesota. For additional information, contact Gary Davis, coordinator of the NEPSI process, at (865) 974-4251 or contact these NEPSI Core Group members: - Heather Bowman, Electronic Industries Alliance, (703) 907-7582 - Scott Cassel, Product Stewardship Institute, (978) 934-4855 - Maureen Hickman, Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, (651) 215-0271 - Sego Jackson, Snohomish County, Washington, (425) 388-6490 - Clare Lindsay, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, (703) 308-7266 - Ted Smith, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, (408) 287-6707 -------------------- Link to information on the new LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Rating System for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB), on the U.S. Green Building Council website: http://www.usgbc.org Scroll down to "LEED for Existing Buildings Pilot Phase." LEED-EB is a performance-based rating system that addresses building operations and maintenance practices as well as systems upgrades in existing buildings. Previously, the LEED rating system could only be used for new construction or major renovations. -------------------- From Renee Kimball, waste prevention advocate, Portland, OR: WOOD YOU BELIEVE IT! We passed a rowhouse building site Where once lay an old cement floor And there we spied in jumbled piles A resource we truly adore! Amidst the Oregon plywood stacks (For which we had little use) Mouthwatering heaps of end-cuts lay And most were just hanging loose. We didn't have to move any boards Nor dodge debris from above Just gather up huge truck-loads full Of the stove-cut size we love. A smidgen of guilt crept over us As we hungrily gathered the fir. Perhaps we should tell the contractor Of a disposal he might prefer. The source separation would save him bucks And tell him we probably should - So we gave the contractor all the scoop.... But only AFTER we got all the wood! What was truly amazing is the amount of wood we got - nearly two cords worth from the half finished building of TWO rowhouses. We did ask first of course and didn't take anything over two feet. E-mail: rrrrenee (A T) aracnet (D O T) com -------------------- Excerpted from the website for the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), Madison, WI (first seen in the WasteCap Wisconsin e-mail bulletin): According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than 200,000 buildings in the United States are torn down annually. Because many of these are wood framed, millions of board feet of dimension lumber are landfilled every year. Although there is great potential to salvage this structural lumber for new home construction, no standards exist for regrading and reuse. At FPL, engineering studies are underway to test reclaimed lumber for stiffness and strength. FPL researchers will compare test results to databases for new lumber. With their findings, regrading and reuse standards will be developed. The effects of nail holes and other damage on lumber strength are also being evaluated. This research will improve the marketability of reclaimed lumber and assure its suitability for reuse. In addition, FPL researchers, along with several partners, are working to encourage the use of building deconstruction (or building dismantlement) as an alternative to building demolition at U.S. Army bases. Working with the U.S. Army, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratories, the University of Florida, the EPA, and Habitat for Humanity, building deconstruction is being evaluated at the Badger Arsenal, Wisconsin; Fort Chaffee, Arkansas; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort McClellan, Arkansas. One potential opportunity is for millions of board feet of lumber available in excess buildings at these bases to be utilized by Habitat for Humanity for the construction of low-income housing. --------------------- Link to "The Miniature Earth," a website presentation on global population, wealth distribution and other issues, done by Allysson Lucca, a graphic designer and artist in Milan, Italy (forwarded by Marcia Rutan): http://www.luccaco.com/terra/terra.htm (This may take a while to load, and possibly might not work well if your computer doesn't have up-to-date software.) - end -