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14 Jun 04 - trees; phones; wedding; materials; ingredients; Ontario; computers
** 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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From George Kinney, Dakota County Environmental Management Department, Apple
Valley, MN, responding to the 6/8/04 item (quoting a report from Wells Fargo
bank) that stated, "If everyone in the United States paid their bills
online, 18.5 million trees a year would be spared - enough to build 216,000
single-family homes":
BAD FACTOIDS
Those of us who have worked in paper country know that popple (poplar) trees
don't make good lumber! I agree that there is quite a savings, but using a
poorly chosen example doesn't make the point. Whenever we try too hard, it
shows. For instance, can that soil support the fir and pines needed for
lumber? Hint - in many cases that is why the land is currently used for
paper-making.
E-mail: George [D O T] Kinney [A T] co [D O T] dakota [D O T] mn [D O T] us
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Excerpted from a message from John Halenar, environmental writer and
consultant, Ridgewood, NJ, responding to the 6/8/04 item that noted that any
cell phone in the U.S. can be used to make a 911 emergency call, even one
for which there is no current service contract:
It is true that all cell phones can be used to dial 911, with or without a
service contract. But, according to my former colleagues at Verizon
Wireless, the problem with using a cell phone without an airtime allotment
is that if the connection drops during an emergency call, the police or fire
department will have no way of calling back or tracing the call back to the
caller. That's why Verizon donates phones and airtime when they make
charitable donations.
That's my understanding. It might be worth contacting one of the service
providers to get the definitive answer.
E-mail: johnhalenar (A T) yahoo (D O T) com
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Excerpted from a message from Julie Rhodes, independent contractor on
environmental issues, Indianapolis, IN, responding to the 6/8/04 news item
that said the average American couple spends $22,300 for their wedding:
That cost for weddings is outrageous. Who has that sort of money, and if
one does, wouldn't they rather put it into a mortgage downpayment or save
for a rainy day?
Our wedding last summer cost us $10,000, which was twice as much as I
thought it would be (naive me). Our invitations were a tri-fold style
brochure that I designed that allowed the invitee to tear off the bottom 1/3
of the invitation as an RSVP. We printed them on 30 percent
recycled-content paper. No envelopes, no tissue paper inserts, just a
self-mailer, which worked out great (note, it was color copied on a nice
stock of paper, so it didn't look like a conference brochure). We also
saved money, time, resources and energy by having our wedding and reception
at the same location. The caterer used all reusable dishes - so, no
disposables. We set up recycling bins at the bar and other locations and a
great friend agreed to take them and get them recycled afterwards. We had
an all-vegetarian buffet meal, which even the most skeptical meat eaters
seemed to enjoy. We bought lots of beautiful flowers from a local floral
wholesaler and did our own arrangements with borrowed vases of various
sizes, and put together lots of planters of flowers which we now have on our
patio. I originally thought that I could find a nice vintage or used dress,
but ended up buying a new one. My husband got a new suit, but one that he
can wear again and again. The people standing up with us just wore nice
outfits, no special order dresses or tuxes. We had my brother video the
event, and three friends took photos (which turned out great and not nearly
as expensive as a professional photographer). We did hire a bluegrass band
to play the wedding and bought a lot of kid activity books and bubbles and
things. We did not hire a wedding planner, but made all the arrangements
ourselves. And, people seemed to genuinely enjoy the event. We didn't get
the feeling that we skimped on anything, but just planned a wedding frugally
and with waste reduction in mind. In other words, we didn't buy a single
"Bride" magazine that told us how our wedding should be. We planned it from
the heart. A person can get by on well below the national average cost of
a wedding and have an event far beyond a justice of the peace ceremony at
the courthouse if they want!
E-mail: Jrhodes4 [ A T ] indy [ D O T ] rr [ D O T ] com
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From David Allaway, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Solid Waste
Policy & Program Development, Portland, OR:
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has just published a major
new report evaluating the amounts and types of energy and raw materials
used, and amounts of solid wastes and over 80 different atmospheric and
waterborne emissions produced, over the life cycle of 26 different packaging
options that could be used to ship nonbreakable items to customers in
e-commerce or catalog sales. The packaging systems evaluated include
corrugated boxes with different types of void fills, and a variety of padded
and non-padded shipping bags. Higher and lower levels of post-consumer
content are evaluated for each packaging option. The report was
co-sponsored by Metro (the local government of the Portland area) and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
Program.
The report has significant findings from a waste prevention perspective
(thus this posting). According to the authors: "The main conclusion that
can be drawn from this analysis regarding packaging options for shipping
mail-order soft goods to residential customers is that the weight of the
packaging is the most critical factor influencing the environmental
burdens."
The report and appendices, at over 500 pages in length, underwent an
independent critical review (funded by the U.S. EPA) prior to publication.
The entire document, "Life Cycle Inventory of Packaging Options for Shipment
of Retail Mail-Order Soft Goods" (plus appendices) is available on-line at:
http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/data/LifeCycleReport.htm
.
E-mail: Allaway [DOT] David [AT] deq [DOT] state [DOT] or [DOT] us
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From Jay Shepard, Washington State Department of Ecology, Olympia, WA:
Attached is a link to an article about a study published by the American
Chemical Society. I don't think it made the rounds in 2002 when it was
published. The real impact of consumer products is not in the product at
end-of-life when it is disposed, but rather in their making, the study
suggests. Consider this: "Scientists have estimated that producing a
single two-gram chip - the tiny wafer used for memory in personal computers
- requires at least 3.7 pounds of fossil fuel and chemical inputs."
The researchers looked at "...one 32-megabyte DRAM chip, tracing it through
every level of production, from raw materials to the final product. In doing
so, they estimated the total energy, fossil fuels and chemicals consumed in
production processes. Each chip required 3.5 pounds of fossil fuels, 0.16
pounds of chemicals, 70.5 pounds of water and 1.5 pounds of elemental gases
(mainly nitrogen)."
That is one little memory chip. Imagine what the resource consumption would
be for the whole computer. Not to mention the impacts of transporting parts
to a central point for assembly, transportation of the product to
wholesalers, transportation to retailers, packaging, transportation home,
energy consumed during use, and then final disposal.
It seems that product design, while in the concept stage, would be the best
time to consider waste reduction - cradle to cradle. If anyone has seen a
complete life cycle analysis of a computer, please share it. The
environmental impacts have to be staggering.
The article, "The Three-And-A-Half Pound Microchip: Environmental
Implications Of The IT (Information Technology) Revolution," is at:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/11/021106074701.htm
The study results are published by the American Chemical Society in their
journal (for non-members, there is a fee for a copy): Environmental Science
& Technology, Vol. 36, No. 24: December 15, 2002. The 1.7 Kilogram
Microchip: Energy and Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor
Devices. Eric D. Williams, Robert U. Ayres, and Miriam Heller. Pp 5504 -
5510; (Article) DOI: 10.1021/es025643o.
Jay's e-mail: jshe461 (AT) ECY (DOT) WA (DOT) GOV
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Link to the Household Products Database, a project of the National Library
of Medicine:
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/index.htm
This database lists more
than 5,000 specific consumer products, by brand name. The database is
designed to help answer these questions:
- What are the chemical ingredients, and their percentage, in specific
brands?
- What are the acute and chronic effects of chemical ingredients in a
specific brand?
- Who manufactures a specific brand? How do I contact this manufacturer?
- Which products contain specific chemical ingredients?
To get an idea of what information is included in this database, click on
"Products" and then click on "Browse Alphabetically." Then just pick a
letter and pick a product.
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Link to "Ontario's 60 Percent Waste Diversion Goal," a formal discussion
paper released on 6/10/04 by the Province of Ontario's Ministry of the
Environment (forwarded by Dwight Mercer):
http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/programs/4651e.pdf
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Link to the fifth annual Computer Report Card, released in May 2004 by the
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (seen in the Pacific Northwest Pollution
Prevention Resource Center newsletter):
http://svtc.igc.org/svtc/cleancc/pubs/2003report3.pdf
The Report Card
is issued by the Coalition's Computer TakeBack Campaign to document whether
manufacturers are including environmental design concepts into their
products and taking responsibility for the entire life cycle of those
products.
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