WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ARCHIVE   BACK TO ARCHIVE INDEX

21 Apr 03 - design contest; games; online exchange; Earth Day ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive -------------------- Link to information about a design contest for e-commerce shipping packaging and logistics, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Solid Waste, in conjunction with the McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry design firm: http://www.mbdc.com/challenge Note from Tom: If you get the message "Do you want to install and run Macromedia Flash Player 6...." when you try to get into this website, I think that if you just click No you can go ahead and look at the website without any problems. ------------------- Excerpted from a message from David Assmann, San Francisco Department of the Environment, San Francisco, CA, responding to the 4/8/03 item about small business pollution prevention board games developed by the Iowa Waste Reduction Center (IWRC) at the University of Northern Iowa: Our schools education staff here in San Francisco looked at these games but expressed concern about them, saying that they are really a way to promote trade associations for the dry cleaning, printing and automotive service industries, as opposed to an objective look at the environmental issues for small business. Our schools staff used these games as a learning opportunity for themselves to critically analyze teaching materials that cross their desk, and they had a good discussion about this. E-mail: David ( D O T ) Assmann ( A T ) sfgov ( D O T ) org Note from Tom: The text of these games, and other information about them, is on the IWRC's website at: http://www.iwrc.org/programs/boardgames.cfm To see references to the trade associations, click on the Student Decision Sheet for the Rev It Up! game (see page 4), or click on the Chance Cards for any of the games. -------------------- Link to the new King County (WA) Online Exchange: http://dnr.metrokc.gov/swd/exchange This service allows King County residents to place free listings for their unwanted items. The items must have a price of under $100 (or be free). Interesting items that have been listed on the Exchange so far include: - New wedding dress, never worn. $99. - A lizard tank (also unused), plus supplies. $30 - 41 years worth of National Geographic magazines. Free. For more information on the exchange, contact Jay Beach at Jay (D O T) Beach (A T) metrokc (D O T) gov ------------------- Excerpted from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality website: EARTH DAY WEEK IS "USE LESS STUFF" WEEK IN OKLAHOMA The third annual Oklahoma Use Less Stuff Week is being held this week, April 19-26, 2003. The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is coordinating this campaign and partnering it with Earth Day, which is on Tuesday, April 22. Ellen Bussert of DEQ said, "Since using less stuff is something everyone can easily do to celebrate Earth Day April 22, we thought combining these events would be helpful to Oklahoma citizens." Nearly 50 percent of Oklahoma's population is now served by some type of recycling program. However, to make a real impact on saving resources and energy, we must learn to not create so much waste in the first place, by reducing and reusing both products and packaging. As with recycling, source reduction can be practiced effectively on a corporate, community, or personal level. It helps the environment, but it can also be financially rewarding. If you simply Use Less Stuff, you'll save money every time you shop, and also your town will save money. That's because the cost of preventing waste is zero, while the cost of recycling, not to mention landfilling, can be very expensive. Thus, waste prevention, or Using Less Stuff, means more money for important services such as education, crime prevention, road maintenance and human services. Using Less Stuff therefore plays a major role in efforts to develop a sustainable society, one that makes efficient use of resources while minimizing impact on the environment. ------------------- Following are two perspectives on Earth Day, from opposite ends of the political spectrum. ------------------- Excerpted from an essay by Jackie Alan Giuliano, posted 4/19/03 on the Infoshop News website: (Jackie Alan Giuliano is a writer and teacher in Seattle, and he is the author of "Healing Our World.") EARTH DAY 2003 - A TIME FOR MOURNING, NOT CRAFT FAIRS The 33rd Earth Day this year will mark an unprecedented time of resource consumption and environmental violence against the Earth and our health. On Earth Day this year, while speeches, conversations and trinket sales take place: - 603 people worldwide will die from exposure to pesticides and countless more will suffer serious health threats from chronic exposure. - 5,400 to 11,000 children will die from diarrhea from polluted drinking water. - 27,000 children will die from curable infectious diseases. - 164 babies will be born that are affected by mercury poisoning because their mothers ate contaminated fish. - Nearly 2 million gallons of engine oil will be poured down the drain and will enter our nation's waterways. - Over 41 million pounds of trash will be dumped at sea worldwide (about 77 percent of all ship waste comes from cruise ships). - Over 3 million pounds of hydrocarbons will be released into the atmosphere just from jet skis, lawn mowers, boat engines, and other 2-cycle motors. - 313 million gallons of fuel - enough to drain 26 tractor-trailer trucks every minute - will be used in the U.S. - 18 million tons of raw materials will be taken from U.S. soil. Earth Day has become a time when the right wing corporate, industrial, and political leaders probably rejoice in the passivity of the population. Some would argue that although many people are more aware of environmental issues today than in 1970, little has been done to stem the tide of environmental destruction in a world where economic growth outweighs planetary health. If anything, the destruction is happening at a greater level than ever before. It is often less visible because industry leaders and politicians know how to keep things quieter with the help of well-paid public relations firms. In 1970, the first Earth Day's message was heard and in the few years that followed, sweeping environmental legislation was enacted including the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Clean Air Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. It was a powerful time of reawakening and it appeared, for a while, that the sobering realization of our impact on the natural world might result in positive change. Species were saved, habitats protected, and development projects were stopped. Thirty-three years after the first Earth Day, I am feeling rather cynical. Earth Day 2003 is a Hallmark card holiday, a day of a few beach clean-ups, educational booths, tree plantings, speeches, conversations and parades. There will be a whole variety of experiences, most press releases for Earth Day events say. Except there will be few demonstrations demanding an end to the madness sweeping across our world and few events pledging solidarity to those fighting for the cleanup of our Earth, our seas, and our skies. It should NOT be a day to sell T-shirts as fundraisers. It should be a day to teach simplification, to model how to end our consumption-at-all-costs lifestyle, and to highlight the importance of establishing a deep and profound connection to the natural world, the cycles of life, and the rhythms of nature. On Earth Day 2003, maybe more than ever before in history, we need to reflect seriously on the fact that time may really be running out for our planet's life support systems - and for us. Maybe Earth Day should be a global call to stop work, to stop driving, stop killing, to sit quietly at home, use as few resources as possible, and teach our children that the raping and plundering of the Earth in the name of economic growth has taken us to the brink of disaster. ----------------- Excerpted from an essay by Michael Berliner, posted 4/17/03 on the Accuracy in Media website: (Michael S. Berliner is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California.) ON EARTH DAY REMEMBER: IF ENVIRONMENTALISTS SUCCEED, THEY WILL MAKE HUMAN LIFE IMPOSSIBLE Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The fundamental goal of environmentalists is not clean air and clean water; rather it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Their goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion. In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, they have made "development" an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the "rights" of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the "rights" of trees. No instance of the progress which brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those "protecting" the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence. Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action which changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something. The expressed goal of environmentalism is to prevent man from changing his environment, from intruding on nature. That is why environmentalism is the enemy of man, the enemy of human life. Intrusion is necessary for human survival. Only by intrusion can man avoid pestilence and famine. Only by intrusion can man control his life and project long-range goals. Intrusion improves the environment, if by "environment" one means the surroundings of man - the external material conditions of human life. Intrusion is a requirement of human nature. But in the environmentalists' paean to "Nature," human nature is omitted. For the environmentalists, the "natural" world is a world without man. Man has no legitimate needs, but trees, ponds and bacteria somehow do. The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives, i.e., the sacrifice of human lives. But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice it to the needs of others and certainly not to the "needs" of the non-human. To save mankind from environmentalism, what's needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a "balance" between the needs of man and the "needs" of the environment. To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life. To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy which makes life on earth possible. - end -