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16 Aug 02 - birthday parties; junk mail; hotels; grocery prices; sustainability ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- Excerpted from an article by Nancy Keates and Lisa Gubernick in the 8/16/02 Wall Street Journal: THE HOT NEW BIRTHDAY GIFT: NOTHING "Present-free" birthday parties for children are a new trend. To the horror of eager five-year-olds - not to mention the $25 billion toy industry - some parents are asking guests to lay off the loot. They want kids to pool presents, donate them to charity or just plain go without. While far from universal, party planners say this practice is getting trendy among parents weary of overblown bashes. "Parents think kids already have enough," says Jennifer Chase, of Phoenix's Fairytale Entertainment, who estimates that present-free parties now make up about one-quarter of the 55 kids' events it throws every month. As an alternative, some parents are now asking the parents of birthday guests to donate their gift money to a charity. This is not always well-received. Back in the days when birthday parties consisted of cake, ice cream and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, few people would have considered going giftless. But lately, kids' birthdays have spawned an entire industry: There are party planners, companies that specialize in theme decoration sets, and a legion of bowling alleys, zoos and ice rinks offering to host a party. Add the fact that many schools now encourage kids to invite the whole class to the party and parents are finding themselves living at the mall. Birthday-party purchases account for about 12 percent of the toy industry, says consumer research firm NPD-Funworld - or roughly $3.5 billion. "Birthday parties have become a chore," says Eric Brown of the Center for a New American Dream, a non-profit group that has studied kids' buying habits. For some parents, the main problem is having all those cheap toys underfoot. But those who oppose the "giftless party" concept point out that, in many cases, eliminating gifts is all about making things easier for the parents - and they, after all, aren't the ones having the birthday. Parents who decide to host a giftless party should be prepared for a negative reaction, both from their own child and from at least a few of the parents of guests. A Seattle mom who asked people not to bring presents to the birthday party for her eight-year-old twin daughters said the response was mixed. Some parents "think it's kind of crazy and mean," she said. ----------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the National Waste Prevention Coalition: Following up on recent postings, I just want to share a response I recently received from Patricia Faley, Vice President for Ethics & Consumer Affairs for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in Washington, DC. I had written the DMA to ask, among other things, why they have one main address for the DMA's Mail Preference Service (which is a new address), but they also now use a different address for the Mail Preference Service for people who send their name to the Service using a computer-generated form. This is an excerpt of her reply: "The address for the Mail Preference Service - Box 643, Carmel, NY, 10512 - is set up to extract data from hand-written postcards, letters and other miscellaneous forms that consumers send in, and to enter that information into our database. When a consumer completes their form online (on the DMA website), a different address is generated. At this location, the standard forms generated by computer can be automatically read. We do not publicize this address because we do not want handwritten letters to go to this address. The address is only generated after the consumer completes their form online. These multiple addresses help us to sort the 100,000 or so requests that come to the Mail Preference Service each month, so that we can better serve those who want to register." (This is Tom again - When someone fills out the Mail Preference Service form on DMA's website, they can just submit it electronically, but if they do it that way they have to pay a $5 fee. If they send it through the U.S. Mail (either using the DMA computer-generated form or another form), they don't have to pay any fee.) -------------------- Excerpted from the 8/15/02 Solid Waste Association of North America E-News (forwarded by Jeff Gaisford): SANTA CLARA COUNTY JUNK MAIL REDUCTION KIT WINS AWARD The Recycling and Waste Reduction Commission of Santa Clara County, California, has received the California Resource Recovery Association's 2002 Award for the Best Waste Prevention Program. They received the award for their Junk Mail Reduction Kit. Various versions of a Junk Mail Reduction Kit have been developed and used by the Countywide Recycling Hotline as well as its local jurisdictions over the past decade. Since its inception, the kit grew into an 8-page brochure, which cost 54 cents to produce and an additional 56 cents to mail. Recently they redesigned the kit in order to demonstrate their ability to lead by example, minimizing the size and cost of their outreach piece. This project focused on redesigning the kit to minimize both printing and mailing costs. The redesigned look was intended to produce a simple, effective package that could be used by the Hotline and local jurisdictions; it would minimize use of paper and postage, and make the process of reducing junk mail less intimidating for residents. The redesign project took waste reduction a step further by reducing the size of the kit, and reducing the mailing and cost of the kit to 37 cents (a first-class stamp), thus further reducing the impact on the environment. At the same time, brochure text was simplified, and eye-catching graphics were used to make the kit as useful and effective as possible. The junk mail kit is also online, at: http://www.reducewaste.org/pdf/junkmail.pdf -------------------- Link to the website for the International Hotels Environment Initiative (IHEI), based in London, United Kingdom: http://www.ihei.org Participating hotels seek to reduce solid and toxic wastes and conserve energy and water. One of the Initiative's projects is this hotel benchmarking tool: http://www.benchmarkhotel.com This tool is designed to help hotels save money and improve environmental performance in the areas of energy management, fresh water consumption, waste minimization, wastewater quality, purchasing programs, biodiversity and community relations. Regarding waste management, the background information on this benchmark website points out, "A mid-range hotel that has a good waste management programme can produce one-quarter of the volume of waste per guest per night than a hotel which has yet to adopt a waste minimisation programme." -------------------- Excerpted from an article by Michael McCarthy in the 8/14/02 Wall Street Journal: BUYING IN BULK IS NOT CHEAPER In many grocery stores, the "Economy Size" or "Family Size" of a brand-name product often costs more per unit than smaller sizes of the same product. With ferocious new competition among the big food retailers, the price mismatch is becoming increasingly noticeable. A survey of various products in several stores around the country provided numerous examples - including Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Oscar Mayer bologna, Cool Whip, and many others - where it's cheaper to buy the product in a smaller size, even though logic dictates that a larger size should cost less per ounce. For example, at a Wal-Mart in Mesa, Arizona, a 36-ounce bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup recently cost $1.78 (and it was not on sale), while a 64-ounce bottle cost $3.97 - that means customers pay about 25 percent more per ounce for the larger size. Why are customers charged more to buy in bulk? Most product manufacturers say retailers are to blame. One theory is that, because medium-sized packages are the most popular with consumers, retailers compete with each other by chopping prices on those hot-selling medium packages, instead of the large sizes. -------------------- Link to an opinion piece by Steve Nicholas, the director of the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment, in the 8/11/02 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/81525_focus11.shtml This essay makes the case for "urban sustainability" and describes sustainability efforts in Seattle. - end -