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28 Apr 04 - conventions; sustainability; convenience; EU; shop towels
** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM **
-- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition
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Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive
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Link to the website for the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible
Conventions (from a tip from John Halenar):
http://www.cerc04.org The Coalition for
Environmentally Responsible Conventions (CERC) was formed in late 2002 to
promote environmental best practices for large conventions, starting with
the 2004 national Democratic and Republican political conventions in Boston
and New York. CERC is a project of the Center for Economic & Environmental
Partnership, a non-profit located in Albany, NY.
The missions of CERC's Waste Committee include:
- Influence event planners and caterers to use food rescue services and
divert food waste for composting.
- Influence event planners to deploy comprehensive recycling programs for
convention events.
- Salvage and recycle construction and demolition waste from convention
venues.
- Find reuse opportunities for all equipment used during the convention.
For more information on the CERC Waste Committee's projects, go to:
http://www.cerc04.org/waste/projects.html
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Link to information on an upcoming conference, "Profitable Sustainability:
The Future of Business," to be held in Seattle Sept. 26-29, 2004:
http://www.nbis.org/conference This
conference will present regional, national and international best practices
for profitable sustainability. The conference is produced by the Network
for Business Innovation and Sustainability, in association with the Future
500 and other organizations.
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Excerpted from a 4/21/04 business article by Anne Mitchell, from the Fort
Myers (FL) News-Press:
CONVENIENCE RULES
The art of giving customers what they want, when they want it, is reaching
new heights. But it doesn't begin and end with actual convenience stores.
"Virtually every retail channel is entering the convenience market - such as
drugstores with expanded food offerings and hours, supermarkets and big-box
retailers adding convenience store operations and gasoline dispensing
services on their sites, and the 24/7 convenience of the Internet," said
Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
It's what people expect. "Convenience is the buzzword," said Ron Patak,
owner of the Blue Pepper Gourmet Market, a gourmet food store in Fort Myers,
Florida., "as long as you don't substitute convenience for quality." Among
other things, the market is catering to what he calls the "grab-and-go
mentality." Soon the store will have more items packaged for people to help
themselves so they won't have to waste time seeking assistance.
Lenard pointed out the increasing convenience in packaging: Single servings
and products designed to fit in the multiple cupholders in today's minivans,
chips packed in cups so they won't get crushed, and soups in cups to be
eaten without a spoon.
Customers call the shots and retailers aim to please. It's a constant
challenge. "The value of convenience has never been higher," Lenard said.
"There has never been a better time to be a customer, and never a harder
time to be a retailer." One trick "is not just to give them what they want,
but what they don't yet know they want," Lenard said. That's why we see
breath mints for sale at the counters in housewares stores and candy at the
checkouts in pet supply stores.
The U.S. convenience store industry, with more than 132,400 stores across
the country, posted more than $290 billion in total sales for 2002, with
$181 billion in motor fuel sales. Profits before taxes were $2.6 billion. A
typical convenience store posted $2.7 million in sales in 2002, according to
NACS. Texas and California have the most convenience stores -12,688 and
9,149, respectively - followed by Florida, with 8,984.
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Excerpted from a 4/28/04 essay by John Horvath in the German magazine
Telepolis:
GARBAGE DILEMMA IN THE NEW EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES
As ten new member countries enter the European Union (EU) on May 1st,
environmental issues are a growing concern. Economic expansion and
capitalism have had a devastating effect on the environment of Central and
Eastern Europe. Previously, the lack of goods and packaging, and little or
no advertising, meant that most countries were immune to the problems of
industrial and consumer waste that many western countries were struggling to
deal with. But that is no longer true. The countries joining the EU now have
a very fine balancing act to perform: To sustain their level of economic
development, on the one hand, and to adjust to EU environmental laws, on the
other.
This is the crux of the problem in Central and Eastern Europe: Having been
brainwashed for the past decade and a half on the virtues of conspicuous
consumption and privatization, both consumers and industry are obsessed with
obtaining the illusory fruits of free market capitalism at all cost -
without concern for the environmental impact such luxuries cause. The rapid
rise of car ownership and the problems it subsequently leads to in terms of
air pollution and congestion is an obvious case in point.
It's this dilemma which can now be seen in the growing mountains of garbage
in Central and Eastern Europe. Time is running out. In Hungary, for
instance, the failure of being able to find a place to put all their garbage
means that EU financing of some 3 billion euros is at stake. Unless sites
can be found and developed soon, Hungary will lose out on this EU
assistance. With Hungary's existing dump sites almost filled to capacity,
and the few incinerators in operation old and inefficient to meet even local
environmental standards, it's a case of needing dumps but nowhere to build
them.
Far from finding a balance between individual needs of consumers and
producers, on the one hand, and the impact these needs have on the
environment, on the other, the people of Central and Eastern Europe are
finding that they are slowly but surely drowning in their own garbage.
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Excerpted from a 4/8/04 syndicated Scripps Howard News Service column by
conservative-movement author Michael Fumento:
REUSABLE SHOP TOWELS - TOXIC HAZARD?
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations are like a ratchet wrench.
The agency will tighten them with the least excuse, but no amount of new
information will ever convince it to loosen them. Thus it's utterly bizarre
that the EPA is now proposing relaxing rules on something that's truly an
environmental hazard.
The proposal concerns industrial shop towels or "industrial wipes." These
can either be made of reusable cloth or throwaway paper. Thousands of U.S.
printing facilities, manufacturing shops and other businesses use over three
billion wipes each year to clean up grease, cleaning solvents, and various
chemicals - some of which cause human cancer. The EPA's proposal favors
reusables by redefining them so that they're no longer considered hazardous
waste as long as they're not literally dripping with goo. At the same time
it greatly increases the requirements for storage and disposal of disposable
paper wipes.
Even the Sierra Club is stunned. "This proposed rule leaves workers, the
environment, and our communities at risk from toxic chemicals," Sierra Club
representative Tanya Tolchin told me.
Shop workers will suffer most. That's because when the reusables come back
from the dry cleaner or laundry they are not completely clean, but rather
still contain small amounts of chemicals and perhaps metal shavings. Shop
workers who use them inevitably touch their faces, eyes, and tongues and
absorb the contaminants. A recent study by the Massachusetts-based
environmental consulting firm the Gradient Corporation found that employees
who use merely 2.5 laundered shop towels per day would on average absorb an
amount of lead that's a stunning 27 times higher than California's limit for
worker exposure. That's why some California legislators are considering
severe restrictions against what they call "toxic towels," including perhaps
a ban.
Many organizations such as the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
Employees (UNITE) also fear for laundry workers and thus vehemently oppose
the EPA proposal. But at least reusables are better for the environment - or
so says their lobby. The President and CEO of the Uniform and Textile
Service Association has praised the EPA "for deciding to exclude properly
handled reusable shop towels from solid waste regulation," declaring that
"it will encourage reuse, recycling and resource conservation."
Gosh, that sounds swell. But while the triple-R mantra may still be a hit
with the tykes who watch Barney the Politically Correct Dinosaur, we now
know that the benefits have been grossly overstated. All of America's trash
generated over the next 1,000 years would fit into a landfill merely 44
miles square and 120 yards deep. Considering that even disposable diapers
comprise, at most, two percent of landfill space, the contribution of paper
shop towels is obviously negligible. Meanwhile more trees for producing
paper are being grown than ever. In any case, reusable wipes last only about
10 to 15 times according to the EPA. Then they too land in a landfill.
Meanwhile, dry cleaning of the reusables usually involves using a solvent
called perchloroethylene. The federal government classifies this chemical as
hazardous waste, while according to the International Agency for Research on
Cancer it's "probably carcinogenic to humans." The IARC label is debatable,
but how ironic that the EPA wants to ease requirements on materials
containing hazardous waste that themselves lead to producing hazardous
waste!
If the reusable towels are laundered, then where does the extracted goo go?
Some goes into sewage systems which - if they overflow - dump into our
lakes, streams, rivers and eventually our water supplies. And the rest? Yup,
the sludge "is commonly disposed in municipal landfills," according to a
Lockheed Martin Environmental Services study that the EPA itself
commissioned. In fact, Lockheed concluded that 30 percent more solid waste
is sent to landfills from the processing of laundered wipes than from
disposables. It also said the sludge from laundered wipes is potentially
more threatening to human health and the environment. "Water-washed sludge
contains approximately 22 percent water which could increase the mobility of
these pollutants into soil and groundwater," it stated.
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