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17 Nov 03 - Ramadan; cell phones; landscaping; green building; Halloween; bags ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- Excerpted from an article by Leslie Scrivener in the 11/17/03 Toronto Star: IKEA LAUNCHES RAMADAN SALES CAMPAIGN In a new public relations campaign in Canada, the Ikea home furnishings chain is highlighting Ramadan, the month-long Muslim fast that began Oct. 27. The campaign shows women wearing hijab and South Asian dress, photos of Mecca, sweet trays used for end-of-fast celebrations, and a text explaining the religious meaning of the holiday. The series of photographs -which includes pictures of Ikea carpets, candles, table settings and gifts for children, as ways of decorating the home for the holiday - is on the Ikea Canada website. It's a first for Ikea and part of a trend by retailers to acknowledge minority celebrations. At least two organizations, the Multicultural Council of Regina and Muslims for Peace and Justice Saskatchewan, have said they appreciate these types of promotions because they recognize that Muslims are part of mainstream Canadian society. The Ikea campaign was created in the store's public relations department by Keka DasGupta, whose first project was home decorating for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, last month. She drew from her Bengali background to show how the festival is celebrated at home. For Ramadan, she interviewed Muslim staff and was advised by Aneesa Razakazi, design consultant at the North York store. "It's important to look at how people of all backgrounds live," DasGupta said. "It's not just about the products, it's about sharing what we've learned." Muslims were generally appreciative, although some are wary that they will become another demographic group targeted by retailers. They don't want to see their holy month commercialized. Ramadan ends Nov. 24, depending on the moon sighting, with Eid celebrations. With it comes cleaning and updating the home, buying new clothes or furnishings. ("Eid is a time for cleansing both the heart and the home," the Ikea copy reads.) "My first reaction was that this is good, that we're part of the mainstream, we have a voice, we are in large enough numbers to be recognized, but there's definitely a flip side," said Farheen Hasan, program manager for a Mississauga non-profit group. "Islam isn't about consumerism," he added. "We don't come from a commercial, disposable culture. If Eid sales become part of a company's bottom line, I really don't like it. Eid is about spending time with family; it is a religious time, remembering people less fortunate, and comes at the end of the month of self-denial and prayer." --------------------- Link to information about "Recycle for Breast Cancer," a benefit project that collects cell phones and printer cartridges for reuse and recycling (seen in the WasteCap Wisconsin e-mail bulletin): http://www.recycleforbreastcancer.com This project provides a prepaid shipping label for sending in cell phones and cartridges; there is no cost to the sender for shipping. The project benefits the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. A 10/3/03 press release about the project is at: http://www.recycleforbreastcancer.com/press_release.htm --------------------- Excerpted from an 11/13/03 release from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (forwarded by Andrea Auerbach) and the EPA website: NEW EPA PROJECT FOCUSES ON LANDSCAPING The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching the GreenScapes Alliance to promote environmentally beneficial large-scale landscaping. The alliance aims to combine government and industry to work toward reduction, reuse, and recycling of waste materials in large land use applications. These land use activities include 4 million miles of roadside landscaping, Brownfields land revitalization, and the beautification and maintenance of office complexes, golf courses, and parks. More than 100,000 businesses are involved in these land use activities. The GreenScapes Alliance (a component of the EPA's Resource Conservation Challenge) will: - Provide information about the cost savings that can be achieved from reducing material use and waste, and about the performance and durability of environmentally preferable products. - Educate land managers that environmentally beneficial landscaping efforts yield water and energy savings, conserve landfill space, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. - Publicize case studies, success stories, and technical assistance to help alleviate concerns regarding alternative practices and products. - Promote market expansion and growth of recycled-content and biobased products. - Award organizations that achieve environmental excellence in reduction, reuse, recycling, and rebuying for waste prevention and pollution prevention. GreenScapes participants fall into two categories. The first group is Partners, which are businesses and agencies that will achieve actual pollution prevention results. The second group is Allies, which are supportive industry associations that will advertise and promote GreenScapes philosophies to their membership and others. EPA announced the GreenScapes Alliance in Pittsburgh at the national meeting of the U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC), where USGBC was recognized as a GreenScapes Charter Ally. To learn more about GreenScapes, or to become a participant in the GreenScapes Alliance, go to: http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/green ----------------------- Excerpted from an article by Motoko Rich in the 11/13/03 New York Times: GREEN BUILDING - AIMING TO BE THE NEXT BIG AMENITY At a time when up to 20 percent of new homes in some markets are being built with environmentally friendly features like double-pane windows, carpet made from recycled plastic, sophisticated air-ventilation systems and nontoxic paints, many Americans still aren't sure just what they're getting when they buy green. Their ambivalence comes at a turning point for the industry. After years of trial runs and custom-built prototypes, the green movement is facing its toughest test of all: Will consumers buy, and will they pay the same kind of premium as they do for marble floors? While environmentalists and engineers have long thought that green design made good sense, developers and real estate brokers are wondering if it is the best way to sell homes to buyers enamored of tangible perks. "We find that to be a huge challenge, because a lot of customers are focused on amenities that they can touch and feel," said Chuck Lemmond, vice president for purchasing at Newmark Homes, based in Austin, Tex. The company expects to install high-efficiency heating and air-conditioning systems and low-volatility paints in 600 houses this year. Customers are generally unwilling to pay a premium for green features, Mr. Lemmond said, adding that he hoped that in the long run the company's reputation for green building would spur buyers to choose Newmark homes. Newmark Homes has developed its green homes as part of a program sponsored by the electric utility in Austin, which is city-owned. About 30 cities and states have some kind of green certification program for builders who voluntarily meet certain criteria, up from none just over a decade ago. In Austin, where the program has been running for 12 years, about a fifth of all new homes are built under green criteria, which include air-conditioners that are at least 20 percent more efficient than those adapted to national standards; landscaping with native plants to reduce the need for watering; and building materials that do not contain formaldehyde. And in Colorado, which has had a statewide program since 1998, the Built Green Colorado program expects to register 5,000 houses this year: 10 to 15 percent of the total being built in the state. Despite the growth, green is still a tiny sliver of the housing market nationwide. In Colorado, the Built Green program plans to begin a new campaign in March that will reposition its homes as more durable and cheaper to run. Until now, they have been marketed mostly as saving resources and the environment. "We haven't been able to reach the broader audience that we need to reach," said Kim Calomino, director of Built Green Colorado. "Folks have a tendency to think if it's green, that's like recycled products, and they have a hard time moving much beyond that," she added. She said the new campaign would show home buyers a direct correlation between green features and cost savings on utility bills and continuing maintenance of the house. ----------------------- From Renee Kimball, Enuf!, Portland, OR: Halloween this year was an incredible disappointment for me. Despite a huge effort to make gory-geous decorations (all from reused stuff and garden materials, well-lit path and FABULOUS ORGANIC CANDY BARS) - we only got 4 trick-or-treaters despite our house being across from the school bus stop where 20-30 kids get on the bus each day. Where were the kids? They were all at the "safe" and about as-scary-as-ice-tea mall so they could scarf cheap trash candy at a 50-yard-dash pace from cubicle to cubicle while their parents shopped. And the point of this exercise is exactly what? There is no part of this "holiday fun" that is not fraught with waste. Despite the fact that the "razor blade in the apple" and other popularly promoted Halloween horrors are urban myth, we have been yet again talked into copious waste by the harbingers of fear. Have most parents received frontal lobotomies about their youthful experience as trick-or-treaters or am I just being a hopelessly incorrigible reactionary? And yes, I will still put out decorations and buy organic candy bars (only because no one will take my incredibly outrageous and horrendously expensive personal creations for Halloween like they used to) even if I don't get a single goblin, demon or Cinderella coming to our door. This goes double for donating food. I will continue to pack up leftovers at every banquet and party I attend and drop them off at whatever location will take it no matter who threatens what. To temper the pattern of your life and the compassion in your heart by fear is to have already taken up residence in your coffin. E-mail: rrrrenee ( A T ) aracnet ( D O T ) com ------------------------- Excerpted from a 9/2/03 article by John Roach on the National Geographic News website: ARE PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS SACKING THE ENVIRONMENT? The "paper or plastic" conundrum that vexed earnest shoppers throughout the 1980s and 90s is largely moot today. Most grocery store baggers don't bother to ask anymore. They drop the bananas in one plastic bag as they reach for another to hold the six-pack of soda. The pasta sauce and noodles will get one too, as will the dish soap. Plastic bags are so cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, and easy to carry and store that they have captured at least 80 percent of the grocery and convenience store market since they were introduced a quarter century ago, according to the Arlington, Virginia-based American Plastics Council. As a result, the bags are everywhere. They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door. They line bathroom trash bins. They carry clothes to the gym. They clutter landfills. They flap from trees. They float in the breeze. They clog roadside drains. They drift on the high seas. They fill sea turtle bellies. "The numbers are absolutely staggering," said Vincent Cobb, an entrepreneur in Chicago, Illinois, who recently launched the Web site http://Reusablebags.com to educate the public about what he terms the "true costs" associated with the spread of "free" bags. He sells reusable bags as an alternative. According to Cobb's calculations extrapolated from data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 on U.S. plastic bag, sack, and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Laurie Kusek, a spokeswoman for the American Plastics Council, said the industry works with its U.S. retail customers to encourage recycling of plastic bags, which are in high demand from companies such as Trex in Winchester, Virginia, for use in building materials. "We also feel it is important to understand that plastic grocery bags are some of the most reused items around the house," Kusek said. "Many, many bags are reused as book and lunch bags as kids head off to school, as trash can liners, and to pick up Fido's droppings off the lawn." The Film and Bag Federation, a trade group within the Society of the Plastics Industry based in Washington, D.C., said the right choice between paper or plastic bags is clearly plastic. Compared to paper grocery bags, plastic grocery bags consume 40 percent less energy, generate 80 percent less solid waste, produce 70 percent fewer atmospheric emissions, and release up to 94 percent fewer waterborne wastes, according to the federation. Robert Bateman, president of Roplast Industries, a manufacturer of plastic bags - including reusable ones - in Oroville, California, said the economic advantage of plastic bags over paper bags has become too significant for store owners to ignore. It costs one cent for a standard plastic grocery sack, whereas a paper bag costs four cents, he said. "The plastic bags are so inexpensive that in the stores no one treats them as worth anything - they use two, three, or four when one would do just as well." Bateman said that plastic bags are becoming a victim of their success. "The industry is at the stage where its success has caused concerns and these concerns need to be addressed responsibly," he said. Among other initiatives, Bateman supports the development of biodegradable plastic bags, a technology that has made strides in recent years. Plastic bag litter has become such an environmental nuisance and eyesore that Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia, and Bangladesh have heavily taxed the bags or banned their use outright. Several other regions, including England and some U.S. cities, are considering similar actions. Tony Lowes, director of Friends of the Irish Environment in County Cork in Ireland, said the 15 cent (about 20 cents U.S.) tax on plastic bags introduced there in March 2002 has resulted in a 95 percent reduction in their use. "It's been an extraordinary success," he said. According to Lowes, just about everyone in Ireland carries around a reusable bag and the plastic bags that once blighted the verdant Irish countryside are now merely an occasional eyesore. Cobb believes a similar tax in the U.S. would have a similar effect on reducing consumption. The American Plastics Council is wary of such a tax in the U.S. They say it would cost tens of thousands of jobs and result in an increase in energy consumption, pollution, landfill space, and grocery prices as store owners increase reliance on more expensive paper bags as an alternative. Bateman said the Irish tax of about 20 U.S. cents per bag is too high, but that a tax of 3 to 5 cents could have a positive impact on reducing plastic bag consumption by changing people's behavior. "Having bags charged for has some merits because it gets them used more responsibly," he said. For example, instead of a bagger using six bags to package a person's dinner, the bagger might use just two. - end -