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03 Sep 03 - restaurants; shaving; CDs; junk mail ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- Excerpted from an 8/28/03 article by John C. Ryan in the Christian Science Monitor (forwarded by Shirley Shimada): HANDS-ON PROGRAM HELPS BAY AREA ETHNIC RESTAURANTS GO GREEN Restaurants consume more energy per square foot than any other retail business, and they're a major source of the food waste and packaging that clog America's landfills. But, with help from a Berkeley (CA) based Asian-American nonprofit group called Thimmakka's Resources for Environmental Education, some ethnic restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area are reducing the often-steep impact of putting hot meals before hungry customers. Thimmakka's Resources began targeting owners of Indian and Pakistani restaurants in the Berkeley area two years ago, in the only program of its kind in the United States. "Ethnic businesses are an underserved community as far as environmental outreach goes," says executive director Ritu Primlani. With its multicultural staff and volunteers, Thimmakka's Resources now works with Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Tibetan, Persian, and other ethnic restaurants in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose. The 30 participating restaurants in Alameda County save a million gallons of water annually and have cut their solid waste an average of 80 percent, according to Ms. Primlani. Restaurants that sign up with Thimmakka's Resources undergo detailed audits of 57 different practices that consume energy and water or generate waste - from cooking to dishwashing to lighting. Then they get technical assistance to boost their environmental performance and save on their utility bills in the process. While Bay Area environmental agencies have had little success penetrating ethnic communities, Primlani says that 95 percent of the eateries visited by her Greening Ethnic Restaurants project have agreed to participate. "You can approach someone over the phone, you can give them literature, or you can approach them in person," says Primlani. "Of these three methods, the least successful is mailing literature to restaurants, which is what most regulatory agencies do." Government agencies and utilities generally lack the funding, and the flexibility, to do more hands-on outreach. "Pacific Gas and Electric, they would send me 10 pages of survey every year. I never respond to it because I am not connecting with them," says Fetlewerk Tefferi, owner of Café Colucci, an Ethiopian restaurant in Oakland that has joined the Greening Ethnic Restaurants project. "We have so many rules about our conduct," says Wanda Redic of Berkeley's solid-waste management division. "A rule as simple as not accepting a free meal in the performance of your duties is offensive to some community groups. To refuse them, however small the gift, is insulting." Alameda County's Green Business program has certified more than 100 firms, from auto repair shops to printers, as green. But they have had difficulty at restaurants. "Restaurant operators just seem to have the least spare time of any sector I work with," says Pam Evans, the county's Green Business coordinator. Thimmakka's Resources' painstaking, hands-on approach makes it easier for overworked restaurateurs to go green, but it limits the number of restaurants its small group can reach. To date, the young program has signed up 30 of Alameda County's 2,000 restaurants. The restaurant industry's profit margins are notoriously slim, and since the California energy crunch in 2001, many restaurants' utility bills have doubled. Ahmed Hadir, the Moroccan owner of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, is grateful for Primlani's efforts to help his small new bakery save money on its hefty utility bills. "She may help keep me in business," he says. --------------------- The next three postings are in response to the 8/28/03 posting from Yen Chin, describing how his Gillette Mach III razor blades last nine months or longer. --------------------- From Renee Kimball, Enuf!, Portland, OR: Personna used to have one of the nine-month blades but they took it off the market after about a year. It worked TOO well. As they were getting harder and harder to get, my husband bought up about five packs and has been "living" on those for the past five years. E-mail: rrrrenee [A T] aracnet [D O T] com --------------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the National Waste Prevention Coalition: How long will razor blades last? My theory is that it really depends on the kind of facial hair a guy has. Mine must be like wire. I've used Mach III blades and I like them, but they (like most other blades) stop giving me a decent shave after about a week. I also remember reading, in the "Use Less Stuff" book (1998) by Bob Lilienfeld and William Rathje, that razor blades would last for months longer if you just dried them off after every shave. I thought, "Oh man, what a great waste prevention tip," and I tried it, but that didn't work for me either. E-mail: tom [ DOT ] watson [ AT ] metrokc [ DOT ] gov --------------------- From Don Van Dyke, California Integrated Waste Management Board, Sacramento, CA: It's nice to hear from Yen Chin that the Gillette Mach III razor blades last so long. However, I might point out to you young-uns that you can go one or two steps forward into waste prevention by taking a step or two backward into time. You can still buy shaving brushes. These simple little tools let you whip up a small batch of lather in no time with a coffee mug and either a half a bar of ordinary bar soap or a little round disk of special shaving soap. Why, Yen could even use fresh lather on his head and still generate far less waste then reusing that pressurized canned foam every day. But I have to ask - Why shave? It is said that the practice of men shaving their facial hair started with the Romans, who were reportedly obsessed with looking young. They supposedly thought that shaving their faces made them look more like boys, and for some reason they liked that. I don't know where the practice of women shaving their legs came from, and I don't want to know. Most of us on this list serve seem to agree that the true challenge to waste prevention lies in changing habits and personal perspectives. We generate a lot of waste with shaving products. I suppose I would be considered to be getting too personal to suggest that people consider doing away with the practice of shaving, or at the very least that men let their beards grow. But then again, I suppose I just suggested it. Males of many species have prominent physical characteristics that distinguish them from females. I think of human male beards as something akin to the manes on male African lions and sea lions, the combs on roosters' heads, and the orange tails on male South Mountain Chuckwalla lizards. Beards are a natural and unique part of male human bodies. The practice of working daily to remove them seems weird to me. Come on guys! Let it grow! You will be doing the planet a favor by not generating all that shaving waste. E-mail: DVanDyke ( A T ) CIWMB ( D O T ) ca ( D O T ) gov --------------------- Link to a summary of a research report about the markets for CDs, DVDs and tapes, from Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA (forwarded by Thor Peterson): Note from Thor: I thought this study had interesting waste prevention implications, especially on the heels of the disposable DVD topic. http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/Summary/0,1338,16076,00.html According to this summary, the main premise of the report is that, "Hard media is in jeopardy." It predicts that by 2008, revenues from CDs will be off 19 percent, while revenues from DVDs and tapes will drop 8 percent. The main reason for the decline is the downloading of files from the Internet. (The full text of the report is available only for a fee.) --------------------- Excerpted from an 8/27/03 article by Barbara Correa in the Los Angeles Daily News: NEW CALIFORNIA LAW SHOULD REDUCE JUNK MAIL California consumers whose mailboxes are inundated with solicitations for credit cards, insurance policies and financial planning can expect some relief next summer with a sweeping consumer privacy bill signed into law August 27 by California Governor Gray Davis. "This is a huge win for consumers in California," said Shelly Curran of Consumers Union. "It represents four years of hard work and ultimately goes to show that in the end, regular Californians were heard over large corporations." Under the California Financial Information Privacy Act, which takes effect July 1, 2004, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions are automatically blocked from sharing consumers' private information with unaffiliated third parties. The second part of the law, which goes a step further and blocks financial institutions from sharing information with its own affiliates, requires consumers to fill out a form expressly forbidding that information swap. Affiliates are companies financial institutions have a stake in. For example, a bank may have separate arms for mortgage lending and financial planning. Large banking institutions may share customer information such as spending habits with those home loan and auto financing affiliates. Then, those affiliates market specific products to consumers based on their history. Consumer advocates say the new law will not only cut down on evening telemarketing calls and junk mail, but also will cut the risks of identity theft. But watchdog groups have concerns that federal legislation could trump the new California law. A House bill proposes amending the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act so that states would have to allow banks to share private consumer information with affiliates. The legislation passed out of the House Financial Services Committee in late July and is expected to go to the full floor in September. "It's good news that California now has the strongest privacy laws in the nation," said Jerry Flanagan, spokesman for the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "Now the fight is in Washington, D.C., because if Bush has his way, Californians' privacy will not be protected and banks will be allowed to override the California law." ------------------- From the U.S. Postal Service website: POSTAL SERVICE ALLOWS NEW TYPE OF ADVERTISING MAIL In July, 2003, the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors approved a new advertising mail product, called Customized MarketMail (CMM). As of Aug. 10, direct mailers could start sending this type of mail. Advertising mail can now be virtually any shape - a pizza, a baseball or an ice cream cone, for example. "In the battle for audience attention, Customized MarketMail will allow business mailers to differentiate their products in the mailstream," says Nick Barranca, vice president of product development for the U.S. Postal Service. "Within certain size, weight and thickness limitations, Customized MarketMail can be virtually any shape and design the mailer desires. CMM will let advertisers put their creativity to work, designing their mailpieces to deliver high impact, demand attention and generate greater response rates." As its name implies, Customized MarketMail must be prepared and mailed in special ways. Business mailers must have or obtain a Standard Mail permit, send a minimum of 200 pieces per mailing, and drop-ship or deliver them to the ultimate destination facilities for handling. The postage rates for these distinctive mailpieces will be 57.4 cents for Regular Standard Mail from businesses, and 46 cents for nonprofit organizations. Mailpieces may be up to 12 inches high by 15 inches long by 3/4 of an inch thick, and weigh up to 3.3 ounces. "Customized MarketMail is an exciting new development in an industry that welcomes innovation," says H. Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. "Business mailers are always interested in new creative applications of mail, so the industry is going to welcome this new technique. There is no doubt that CMM is the shape of things to come." - end -