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15 Dec 03 - curriculum; carpet; grants; holidays; pay-as-you-drive ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- From Susan Salterberg, Center for Energy & Environmental Education, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA: Does anyone know of a curriculum packet about waste reduction (and/or reuse) for grades K-6? Or specific lesson plans about waste reduction for that age level? I have done some work in that area, but more with upper grade levels. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. E-mail: salterberg (A T) uni (D O T) edu --------------------- Excerpted from a 12/4/03 release from Shaw Industries announcing a new environmental policy for the company's carpet manufacturing processes (first seen in the WasteCap Wisconsin bulletin): Shaw Industries Inc., the world's largest carpet manufacturer, has adopted a new environmental policy that commits Shaw to developing sustainable carpet products that can be continually broken down and reused again, returning carpet to carpet through closed-loop or "cradle-to-cradle" recycling. Rather than using traditional approaches that recycle used carpet into other products that could eventually end up in a landfill, the company will utilize this progressive approach to maintain continuous responsibility for its product material. Through its Environmental Guarantee program, Shaw will collect, transport, and recycle any carpet tile made with EcoWorx, its environmentally sustainable carpet backing. In addition to offering an alternative to the industry-standard PVC backing at a comparable cost, EcoWorx is developed with 40 percent less weight, while maintaining or improving all performance categories. Shaw guarantees it will pick up EcoWorx at the end of its life, at no charge to the customer, and recycle it into more EcoWorx, enabling the company to use the same materials in a perpetual loop. When paired together with Shaw EcoSolution Q carpet yarn, the end product can be sustainably recycled carpet to carpet and backing to backing. Introduced in 1999, EcoWorx has become the backing of choice for Shaw carpet tile customers. By the end of 2003, Shaw expects 75 percent of its total tile production to be EcoWorx. To test its materials for sustainability, Shaw now uses the Cradle-to-Cradle Design Protocol, a third-party system created by designer William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart. This design protocol assesses each individual material used in a product to determine whether it's safe for the ecosystem. Shaw's Eco Solution Q fiber and EcoWorx backing are among the first products in the world to be fully assessed through this protocol. A subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Shaw is headquartered in Dalton, GA. The company, with 30,000 employees, manufactures more than 600 million square yards of floor covering annually. Note from Tom: The closed-loop process that Shaw describes sounds like it might be similar to what the Milliken company has done with its Earth Square carpet tile product - taking back carpet tiles, stamping them with a new pattern and then selling them again, which is a great reuse method (the building I work in has the Earth Square tiles, and they've worked very well). More info on Earth Squares is at: http://www.earthsquare.com ------------------- Link to archives of information on reuse grants awarded by the California Integrated Waste Management Board over the past four years (forwarded by Don Van Dyke): http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Reuse/Grants/LGAssist/Archives.htm ------------------- Excerpted from a 12/11/03 column by Jerry Large in the Seattle Times: HOLIDAY SEASON IS A TEST OF VALUES The malls are clogged, newspapers are fat, and some of the houses I drive past have been lit up since the day after Thanksgiving. We are in the midst of Consumptionfest, the year's most magical season. We are all called upon to pay alms to the profits and to decorate our homes in green and red, colors that signify the expenditure of cash that bleeds us dry. Ah, but what is that I hear? It is the voice of simple living, calling us to sheath our credit cards and garage our cars whilst we sit around the hearth playing with our little ones and knitting doilies for those we cherish. And harken now to the call of the devout, admonishing us to remember the other holiday, you know, the one that often gets tacked onto Consumptionfest. And over there, we are beckoned to by those who would have us remember the poor. Do you feel just a tiny bit of guilt about spending? Drop some coins in that bucket, or write a check. It is time to find out who we really are. This is the season of our annual test of values. There are as many approaches to the holiday season as there are personality types and life philosophies; one feels right, depending on who you are to begin with. It's a season full of conflicts and symbolism and conflicting symbolism, the main time of year in which we weigh our higher ideals against the realities of our lives. Giving, for instance, is a wonderful ideal, but when it is tied to buying, it can lose some of its purity. The battle over values is laid out as all that is good and pure vs. all that is crass and evil, but really what most of us want is to find the place where life is in balance. A few weeks of overconsumption isn't a problem. Doing it all year, every year, and basing a society on it, does raise a question or two. Maybe we ought to be grateful for this annual opportunity to question ourselves about what we really are about. I hope you pass your test. --------------------- Excerpted from an article by Will Evans in the 12/11/03 Sacramento Bee: ALTERNATIVES TO THE MALL-IDAYS Drive, shop, spend, wrap. Drive, shop, spend, wrap. It's the modern holiday jingle, sprinkling from shopping mall speakers across the nation. But some don't hum along. Because the holidays mean stress, parking hassles, credit-card debt and clutter to many - or because they feel commercialism clouds the true significance of the time - they opt for alternatives to the consumeristic frenzy that has become a December tradition. They choose homemade and secondhand gifts, place limits on gifts and spending, and opt for donations and volunteerism. Here are some of the stories they shared: - Patty Kushner's family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas, but not as mall-idays. She and her 15-year-old daughter, Natalie, do go to Kmart and Wal-Mart - but they aren't shopping for relatives. They shop for local needy families, buying gifts for 10 children this year. And Kushner, a teacher in Camino, bakes her renowned banana bread for seniors who don't get out much. She delivers the loaves with her daughter, all part of a plan to "teach her that giving to others is what Christmas is really all about." Natalie does get gifts - and Kushner always gets her husband a shirt, because otherwise he "wouldn't have any sharp-looking clothes." But mostly, she says, "we try to think about the others that don't have much." - This Dec. 25 will mark the third anniversary of the "Recycled Christmas" for San Francisco resident Brian Smith and his family. These giving guidelines must be followed: 1) You can make a present; 2) You can give away something you own; 3) You can shop at a secondhand store or garage sale; 4) Gifts must be wrapped in newspaper. The rules were born from a group confession, freed by several glasses of wine. After a cousin let loose a rant against shopping, relative after relative admitted they, too, hated the decked halls of holiday malls. "We were the average American family that had bought into this consumeristic Christmas, and this was a way to kind of reclaim the holiday for ourselves," says Smith, 37, who works for Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm in Oakland that focuses on environmental issues. Smith has particular disgust for the environmental harm the season's waste produces and the feeling that it matters more how much one spends than the thought put into the gift. And so the Recycled Christmas was born. One year, his mother gave photo albums filled with childhood pictures that for years had stocked forgotten shoeboxes. An aunt gave her favorite cookbook, gravy stains included. Smith has given used books, burned CDs and a "loud muumuu" from a thrift store as a joke. He and his brother baked beer bread and handed it out warm. It's forced the family to think harder about matching gifts to the person, Smith says, instead of getting the same old "smelly soap sets for my aunt and whatever the pop record of the week is for my young cousin." And the best part was the presentation. "That's what the most fun was - the hilarity that ensued when somebody explained why they thought this cheesy statue would go well in (someone's) garden," Smith says. The first year, Smith got a big plastic lawn goose - with a light inside - for his dad, a bird enthusiast. His parents were so tickled, they proudly place the tacky tchotchke in the living room every year, decorated with holly. -------------------- Excerpted from an article by Elisa Murray in the 11/3/03 Grist Magazine (forwarded by David Flora from the WasteCap of Lincoln E-Newsletter): PAY AS YOU DRIVE: MILEAGE-BASED CAR INSURANCE Most of us don't think much about car insurance. We eyeball the policy every year, fiddle around with a few changes to bring down the premium, and then forget about it until the bills come. And come they do - each exactly the same amount, no matter whether we've driven across the country or left the car in the garage. Doesn't sound right, does it? Mileage - like factors such as age and driving record - has long been correlated with accident risk. The more you drive, the higher the chance of a crash. But unlike a driver's age and record, how far you drive is not much of a factor in determining your premium. Some companies do offer low-mileage discounts, but these don't come close to capturing the actual difference in accident risk between high- and low-mileage drivers. Todd Litman, director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in British Columbia, has done extensive research on the relationship between annual mileage and insurance claims. His studies suggest that if other risk factors - such as age of driver, time of day, and type of driving - are constant, then accident risk tends to increase in a roughly linear relationship with mileage. Translation: If you drive twice as much, you're about twice as likely to have an accident. The result is an inequitable insurance system and an incentive to treat driving like an all-you-can-eat buffet: Once you've paid the price, you may as well gorge - which increases the environmental and social problems related to driving. However, the state of Oregon is taking a crack at lowering car insurance costs and reducing the collateral damage from driving. In July, Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) signed a new law that encourages insurers to offer pay-as-you-drive insurance (PAYD). PAYD is an innovative approach to insurance that rewards motorists for driving less by selling insurance on a per-mile rate instead of a fixed rate. PAYD also incorporates existing rating factors, such as a driver's crash history, age, and geographic location. Mileage can be checked either through high-tech satellite technology - GPS - or simple odometer readings. Essentially, pay-as-you-drive makes buying car insurance more like buying gasoline: The less you drive, the less you pay. The Oregon bill, sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council and widely supported by consumer, environmental, and business groups, helps insurers reduce the set-up costs for such a system by giving them a limited tax credit for offering per-mile premiums. It is purely voluntary: No mandates, just incentives. Now that the bill has become law, Oregon is the first state to give insurance companies a financial incentive to "test drive" per-mile premiums. PAYD could help slash the huge environmental consequences - sprawl, air and water pollution, energy overconsumption, ruined wildlife habitat, drilling in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - of America's drive-through way of life. PAYD would even help address the problem of global climate change. The Oregon law should serve to accelerate the work on similar programs in other states and countries. Efforts have been launched in Georgia, Massachusetts, and England, among other places. Texas has passed a bill authorizing insurers to offer PAYD, but Texas lawmakers did not offer incentives to insurers, which may be a key factor in getting the programs started. If pay-by-the-mile insurance is as successful as its supporters in Oregon anticipate, the dynamics of the marketplace will take over, giving more consumers a chance to save money - and make the world a bit better - by spending less time behind the wheel. - end - PAYD is an innovative approach to insurance that rewards motorists for driving less by selling insurance on a per-mile rate instead of a fixed rate. PAYD also incorporates existing rating factors, such as a driver's crash history, age, and geographic location. Mileage can be checked either through high-tech satellite technology - GPS - or simple odometer readings. Essentially, pay-as-you-drive makes buying car insurance more like buying gasoline: The less you drive, the less you pay. The Oregon bill, sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council and widely supported by consumer, environmental, and business groups, helps insurers reduce the set-up costs for such a system by giving them a limited tax credit for offering per-mile premiums. It is purely voluntary: No mandates, just incentives. Now that the bill has become law, Oregon is the first state to give insurance companies a financial incentive to "test drive" per-mile premiums. PAYD could help slash the huge environmental consequences - sprawl, air and water pollution, energy overconsumption, ruined wildlife habitat, drilling in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - of America's drive-through way of life. PAYD would even help address the problem of global climate change. The Oregon law should serve to accelerate the work on similar programs in other states and countries. Efforts have been launched in Georgia, Massachusetts, and England, among other places. Texas has passed a bill authorizing insurers to offer PAYD, but Texas lawmakers did not offer incentives to insurers, which may be a key factor in getting the programs started. If pay-by-the-mile insurance is as successful as its supporters in Oregon anticipate, the dynamics of the marketplace will take over, giving more consumers a chance to save money - and make the world a bit better - by spending less time behind the wheel. - end -