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24 Nov 03 - purchasing; deconstruction; EFR; Christmas trees; diapers ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- From Katie Jensen, Austin Energy Green Building Program, City of Austin, Austin, TX: The City of Austin has been looking at ways to reduce our environmental impact through the items we purchase (or don't purchase). We have looked at several different examples of environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) policies, ordinances, guidelines and the like, to try to develop one that will work within our jurisdiction. We realize the importance of being able to track purchases made and the impact a policy is having in order to make it an effective tool for us. I am looking for examples of how entities are tracking the impacts of their environmentally preferred purchasing systems. It would be helpful to see how tracking takes place, how much this costs or saves the entity, where savings may be realized in other areas of the purchasing system, and any other useful information that you have learned from your tracking systems. Thank you so much for your help! E-mail: katie [ D O T ] jensen [ A T ] austinenergy [ D O T ] com --------------------- Link to the Deconstruction Benefit Calculator, on the website of the Deconstruction Institute, a project of Charlotte County Environmental Services, Sarasota, FL (seen on the Reuse Development Organization listserv): http://www.deconstructioninstitute.com/calculator With this interactive calculator, the user can enter in the square footage of a house to come up with estimates of the benefits of deconstruction. Estimates are made for land use, economics, energy and greenhouse gas emissions. --------------------- Link to Fiscally Green, a Canadian website about ecological fiscal reform (seen in the Gallon Environment Letter): http://www.fiscallygreen.ca/efr.html Ecological fiscal reform (EFR) is a strategy that redirects a government's taxation and expenditure programs to create incentives to support a shift toward sustainable development. EFR includes the use of policy tools such as taxation, tax exemptions, permit trading, tax rebates, direct expenditure, program expenditure and tax credits. This website is supported by Environment Canada, the Canadian federal environmental agency. It includes summaries of EFR policies in Canada (http://www.fiscallygreen.ca/experience.html) and around the world (http://www.fiscallygreen.ca/experience2.html). --------------------- Excerpted from the University of Illinois Extension "Christmas Tree Facts" web page: - 34 to 36 million Christmas trees were harvested in the United States in 2001; 28 million Christmas trees were sold in the U.S. in 2001. - More than one million acres of land have been planted in Christmas trees. - The Christmas tree industry employs more than 100,000 people. - Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons. - Old Christmas trees are sometimes used on land for erosion barriers, or in lakes and ponds for fish shelter. - In 2002, 21 percent of U.S. households had a real Christmas tree, 48 percent had an artificial tree and 31 percent had no tree. - Artificial trees last an average of six years. For more information about Christmas trees, see the University of Illinois Extension "Christmas Tree Facts" web page at: http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/trees/treefacts.html ---------------------- Excerpted from an 11/16/03 article by Janet Cho for the Newhouse newspapers news service: THE POOP ON DISPOSABLE DIAPERS Manufacturers of disposable diapers are coming out with more and more variations on their product. There are newborn diapers with notched waistbands for healing navels. Swim diapers that keep water out and accidents in. Super-absorbent overnight diapers for children who might otherwise wet the bed. Even his-and-her training pants with designs that disappear when wet. Every brand touts special features, whether extra-stretchy sides, leak-proof leg gathers, tapes that fasten and refasten, easy-open tear-away sides or an economical price. And if it has a decorative waistband with Barney, Cinderella or the Bear in the Big Blue House, all the better. "From the day a baby enters the world to the day they leave the diaper category, we have a product for them," said Lisa Jester, spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co. This selling strategy is called product segmentation. The $19-billion-a-year global disposable diaper market is dominated by two longtime rivals: Procter & Gamble (P&G), which makes Pampers and Luvs, and Kimberly-Clark Corp. of Irving, Texas, which makes Huggies. Together, Huggies, Pampers and Luvs account for 15 of the top 20 best-selling brands in the United States, according to Information Resources Inc., a Chicago marketing research firm. Rapid growth in the nation's diaper industry is being fueled by the fact that the U.S. has the highest birthrate among industrialized nations. In contrast with previous generations, the vast majority of baby bottoms are swathed in disposable diapers. The percentage of cloth diaper users now hovers in the single digits. "There's been a whole change in people's habits, a complete and total shift to disposable diapers," said W. Benoy Joseph, associate dean and professor of marketing at Cleveland State University's James J. Nance College of Business Administration. "Customers are fixated on convenience." Pampers, created in 1961 after a P&G researcher got fed up with washing his granddaughter's cloth diapers, was the first broadly available commercially made diaper in the United States. The company splits its product line three ways: the basic and most popular Pampers Baby Dry Diapers, lower-priced Luvs Ultra Leakguards, and a premium line called Baby Stages, introduced in 2002. Each type of diaper is then subdivided according to size and category. For example, Baby Stages includes Newborn Swaddlers, super-soft diapers for babies up to 10 pounds who spend a lot of time playing and sleeping on their backs; Custom-Fit Cruisers, with stretchy adjustable sides and leg gathers for babies who are sitting up, crawling and walking; and Easy-Ups, training pants for toddlers that pull on like underwear. Last fall, P&G added a new product called Preemie Swaddlers, tiny diapers that can fit in an adult's hand, for premature infants 1 to 5 pounds. Kimberly-Clark controls 34 percent of the U.S. diaper market and has similar divisions: its basic Huggies Ultratrim line, a premium Huggies Supreme line, his-and-her Huggies Pull-Ups training pants, and the recently introduced Huggies Convertibles for active 15- to 36-month-olds. Convertibles can be worn like a diaper or pulled up like pants. Kimberly-Clark, which created the first Pull-Ups training pant in 1989, has even invented categories in which it has no rivals: Huggies Overnights, which help prevent overnight leaks; Pull-Ups GoodNites, a nighttime diaper for older children; Huggies Little Swimmers, colorful disposable swimpants, and a new line of Huggies disposable changing pads. Because it's hard to comparison-shop in the diaper aisle, many parents stick to a particular brand. So both Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble start marketing to couples even before the baby arrives, sending samples and coupons to childbirth classes and baby stores. The domination of Huggies and Pampers doesn't bother smaller manufacturers like Highland Heights, Ohio-based Hospital Specialty Co., which makes Precious brand diapers as well as private-label brands for Shop-Rite Stores in metropolitan New York and Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada. "The purpose of private labels," said Paul Marion, executive vice president of sales and marketing, "is to offer a product that has the appropriate features of a national label, price it 25 to 30 percent below what the brand is selling at, and have the product be national brand-equal." - end -