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03 Dec 03 - campus dishware; purchasing; consumerism; junk mail; dish brush; overview ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- From Bruce Nordman, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA: I am looking for good studies about the relative environmental impacts of different ways for cafeterias and other foodservice outlets at a college campus to manage dishware: old-fashioned washing, single-use throwaway, composting, and recycling. Each of these may have several materials options of course. Discussions of best practice would also be helpful, including methods that are difficult to implement in practice and so not good choices, and economic issues. I will not be using the information directly, but passing it along to others who will. E-mail: BNordman ( A T ) LBL ( D O T ) gov --------------------- From Eric Nelson, King County Procurement and Contract Services Section, Environmental Purchasing Program, Seattle, WA, responding to the 11/24/03 query about how agencies track the impacts of their environmentally preferred purchasing systems: When King County agencies request that the Purchasing Agency establish a supply contract to meet their requirements, we include language in the contract to require the supplier to furnish the Environmental Purchasing Program with a quarterly report indicating the amount and cost of environmentally preferable material supplied and the agencies to whom it was consigned. We look forward to inquiries about environmentally preferable purchasing policy development and implementation, including the various methods we use to capture and track purchase data and savings. We'd be pleased to correspond or speak with anyone with specific questions about the methods of our program and we recommend our website at http://www.metrokc.gov/procure/green, where our 2003 annual report will show implementation details about products on which we collect data. E-mail: eric ( DOT ) nelson ( AT ) metrokc ( DOT ) gov Phone: (206) 263-4278 --------------------- Link to information on the Sony Corporation's landmark Green Procurement program (first seen in the Gallon Environment Letter): http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/procurementinfo/procurement/en-procurement_green.html (One document linked to off this web page may not be readable without the Adobe Reader "Japanese Language Support Package.") --------------------- Excerpted from a message from Ron Perkins, SCS Engineers, Lexington, VA, responding to the 11/17/03 news item about the commercialization of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim fast, in a public relations campaign in Canada by the household furnishings chain Ikea: I have been doing a lot of work in Egypt recently (that's where I'm writing this now), and Ramadan is in fact being commercialized already. "Consumerism" is very much alive and growing here in this part of the Islamic world. As an example, in an article in the November 2003 Egypt Today magazine, a teenager named Ahmed is quoted saying he likes shoes and watches. "We have money, and we like to spend it," he says. "Why not spend it and have fun?" The article adds, "Teenagers (in Egypt) aren't a majority, but they're numerous - and the well-to-do among them are spending an increasing share of their parents' money as discretionary income." E-mail: rperkins [ A T ] scsengineers [ D O T ] com --------------------- Link to websites for "Waste Free Holidays" programs in Washington state: King County (WA) Waste Free Holidays: http://www.metrokc.gov/wastefree City of Tacoma Waste Free Holidays: http://www.cityoftacoma.org/wastefree --------------------- Excerpted from an 11/11/03 article by Ken Magill in the New York Sun (forwarded by Susan Salterberg): TRADE GROUPS UNITE TO DEFEND DIRECT MAIL A coalition of trade groups has formed to head off a national do-not-mail registry similar to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) wildly successful do-not-call telemarketing list. The groups fear that advertising mail - they despise the term "junk mail" - may get steamrolled by do-not-contact mania sweeping state and federal legislatures. More than 30 states have no-telemarketing lists. At last count, the FTC reported it has received more than 63,000 complaints from consumers claiming marketers have contacted them illegally. The national registry contains 54.3 million phone numbers, making it the most popular consumer protection initiative in American history. Moreover, nonprofit consumer activist group the Center for a New American Dream is claiming growing support for its campaign to get Congress to create a national do-not-mail list. Now business groups are mobilizing members to take grassroots action. "The central issue we face is the matter of equivalence; that is, the presentation of mail as simply another form of cold calling or spam," the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) said in a letter to members. PostCom, an organization of 250 companies, such as the country's largest printers and paper manufacturers, estimates that postal mail fuels the production of $900 billion worth of goods and services annually. According to PostCom, 77 percent of postal mail is business-generated, and 55 percent is advertising mail, not including ad-supported periodicals. "The point of our taking this on is to make sure (legislators) understand what the differences are among the various media, and...that there are significant consequences they're going to have to be prepared to bear if they take the (do-not-call) approach and try and apply it to mail," said the president of PostCom, Gene Del Polito, in Arlington, Va. Also, in contrast to e-mail spam, senders bear all the costs of postal mail, added Mr. Del Polito. Among the groups in PostCom's coalition are the Printing Industries of America, the Envelope Manufacturers Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, the Mailing and Fulfillment Service Association, and the Direct Marketing Association. The group has begun a letter-writing campaign to news outlets that lump direct mail in with telemarketing and e-mail spam. PostCom sent a letter to USA Today last month protesting an October 16 article equating junk mail, spam, and telemarketing. The groups are also enlisting members to monitor local legislatures for do-not-mail bills. They hope they can avoid the fate of the telemarketing industry, which failed to mobilize against do-not-call legislation as it appeared in the states. "The do-not-call list was something that was definitely brewed in state legislatures," said Scott Hovanyetz, an editor who covers telemarketing for trade newspaper DM News of New York. Mr. Hovanyetz added that it took 10 years for the no-call telemarketing list to become a national topic. But, he added, do-not-contact legislation for e-mail hasn't had to wait that long, and direct mailers are right to feel threatened. ---------------------- From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the National Waste Prevention Coalition: PRODUCT ALERT Here's another new product the world has been waiting for: Procter & Gamble's new Dawn Power Dish Brush. According to the website (http://www.homemadesimple.com/dawn/dish_brush.shtml), this is "a battery-powered, rotating bristle tool that redefines the way you do dishes." Procter & Gamble is heavily promoting this new product with television commercials. ---------------------- Excerpted from an environment column by Tom Arrandale in the December 2003 issue of Governing magazine: A GROWTH INDUSTRY Coffee Crossing is one of those private establishments that perform an essential purpose in public life across America. In my hometown, Livingston, Montana, this one serves as a gathering place where people of all sorts come to drink coffee, talk politics and sports, and keep up with the civic discourse that holds any community together. But even in cowboy towns such as Livingston, the old-time cafes and coffee shops are giving way to the fast-food and latte culture. If you ask, Coffee Crossing will serve your coffee in a ceramic mug, but it dispenses most of its drinks in 200 or more paper cups a day - just like Starbucks and other big chains that have spread to the far reaches of the country. That adds up to 70,000 cups a year from just one of seven coffee places in a town of barely 8,000 residents. It's not, of course, just a Livingston problem. U.S. coffee drinkers now throw out 125 million take-out cups a year. That figure suggests why state and local solid waste managers are sounding discouraged about how much of a dent they've been able to make in the rate at which garbage is accumulating in landfills. Coffee cups are only a part of their problem. Recycling rates have leveled off, while manufacturers keep coming out with fancier packaging as well as throwaway razors, cameras, cleaning cloths and even toilet brushes. "Disposables are exploding right now, and taxpayers and local government are bearing the brunt of disposing of all that waste," complains Tom Watson, a longtime waste-reduction specialist for King County, Washington. Reducing sources of trash remains the ultimate goal for government garbage experts. It's just sensible for communities to keep as much material as possible from getting thrown out with the trash, leaving less to collect, truck to landfills, incinerate or recycle. Some of us remember drinking milk from reusable bottles in grade school cafeterias, but now nearly all drinks come in throwaway paper or plastic containers. There are a few do-it-yourselfers who still prefer to buy loose nails from hardware store bins, but manufacturers save money by shipping and selling goods in pre-packaged boxes that are cheap, durable and disposable. The economy still doesn't take enough account of environmental costs, and nobody took much notice this fall when McDonald's decided to scrap the brown paper sacks it began using in the 1980s and went back to bleached white paper bags. Government waste managers still soldier on with sensible waste-prevention projects. As a result of their efforts, local exchanges are cropping up where residents find discarded furniture and can salvage reusable building materials. The Washington Department of Ecology is moving to buy paper with 100 percent post-consumer content, and Portland, Oregon, agencies are developing procurement standards demanding unbleached paper from companies that meet forest-management standards. This fall, King County and a number of other local agencies began conducting campaigns to encourage residents to give theater tickets and other holiday gifts that don't come in packages and gift wrapping. "There's sort of a leap of faith in programs like this," Watson concedes. Benefits are tough to quantify, but government procurement standards requiring recycled content should be credited with making a case that big corporations are starting to build on. The electronics industry is now pushing computer component recycling, and Ben & Jerry's sells ice cream in unbleached paperboard pints. UPS offers reusable two-way express envelopes, and Bank of America and Citigroup are turning to recycled paper and cutting back on pointless paperwork. Staples and other chains are beginning to make reasonably priced recycled office supplies more available to Main Street businesses. As processes improve, maybe someday glossy catalogs and magazines - including this page - will be printed on recycled paper. Composting leftover restaurant food could be another logical way to turn waste now rotting in landfills into a useful commodity. Starbucks passes coffee grounds out to neighborhood gardeners who turn it into compost. The coffee chain also grants a 10-cent discount to customers who bring their own refillable containers. Starbucks calculates that last year it sold 12 million drinks in commuter mugs, keeping 550,000 pounds of paper out of the trash at its 1,800 outlets. Coffee Crossing gives you 25 cents off, so I figure my own mug will pay for itself after a couple of months. Neil Ackerstrom, the proprietor, looks for organic farms that will take leftover grounds for compost and hauls cardboard boxes away in his truck to the recycling center. It's hard to know whether the other six coffee shops, 25 restaurants and dozen bars in town will follow that example. But if Coffee Crossing is any measure, maybe government waste managers have reason to take heart that the message is getting through to even the smallest of public-spirited businesses. - end -