| |
25 Aug 04 - school lunches; textbooks; hats; cameras; China; toxics; reinventing
** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM **
-- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition
--------
Forum archive: http://www.nwpcarchive.org
---------------------
Excerpted from an 8/12/04 article by Gwen Mickelson in the Santa Cruz (CA)
Sentinel:
MOMS TEAM UP TO BUILD A BETTER, LESS WASTEFUL LUNCH BOX
When Santa Cruz residents Tammy Pelstring and Amy Hemmert had children in
grade school, they volunteered in the classroom and found themselves hanging
around for snack time. The women, friends and jogging partners since 1995,
noticed the waste that occurred during mealtimes, as well as the
preponderance of convenience foods that weren't necessarily healthy.
"The main example was drink pouches that the kids couldn't finish, and then
there was no way for them to seal them back up," said Pelstring. "We also
saw a lot of Lunchables," said Hemmert, referring to the Oscar Mayer
products that typically include crackers, cheeses, meats and other items in
compartmentalized disposable packaging. Hemmert said that she and Pelstring
became concerned about the high fat, hydrogenated oil and sugar content such
products may contain, in addition to the waste.
Fans of portable Japanese-style bento boxes - lacquered boxes with dividers
creating separate compartments for different foods - the two started a
company called Obentec in 2001 with the idea of helping families improve
lunchtime nutrition, save money on disposable packaging, stem the rising
tide of childhood obesity and reduce waste. Their product, called Laptop
Lunches, is a flat plastic lunch box in various bright colors, divided into
compartments that include containers with lids for liquid foods and a
stainless steel fork and spoon. Parents can also buy a zippered carrying
case that resembles those used to tote laptop computers. The full set,
including the carrying case and a user guide, costs $33.99 on the company
Web site.
"What the kids really like is the compartments," said Pelstring. The
entrepreneurs also wanted their products to include an educational
component, teaching parents how to make their product work. "We felt
passionate about that," said Hemmert. "It can't just be the cute container."
The user guide included with the lunchbox covers environmental issues,
childhood obesity and nutritional education, and offers kid-friendly menus
and waste-free lunch tips.
Laptop Lunches sets and books are available at grocery stores, children's
stores and bookstores nationally, and at: http://www.laptoplunches.com
The company is now developing adult-size
versions. "Our vision is to have a whole line of stylish, high-tech,
high-quality lunch containers," said Pelstring.
------------------------
Excerpted from an article by Stephanie Kang in the 8/24/04 Wall Street
Journal:
NEW COLLEGE TEXTBOOK OPTIONS REDUCE COST, WASTE
This fall, college students have some new options for dealing with textbook
sticker shock.
Along with the rising cost of tuition, textbook prices have students in a
furor, with their complaints making their way to state legislatures and the
U.S. Congress. In response, the publishing industry has recently stepped up
several efforts to offer low-priced shopping options for students. Some
publishers are now aggressively pushing online versions of texts, or
no-frills soft-cover versions.
Schools are also joining in. Many schools are starting rental programs that
allow students to rent a semester's worth of textbooks for about $50 to $80.
Students are also swapping books online, through websites (one example is
http://www.campusmonster.com/mbooks )
or through campus organizations such as the student-run Book$wap at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison.
-----------------------
From Jetta Antonakos, Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle, WA:
I got a call from a concerned resident. She suggested that we sponsor a
contest where everyone is instructed to save all their used holiday gift
wrapping to "Make Your Own New Year's Eve Hats." I laughed because it is a
cute idea.
E-mail: Jetta [D O T] Antonakos [A T] Seattle [D O T] Gov
-----------------------
Excerpted from an 8/19/04 article by Jefferson Graham in USA Today:
DRUGSTORE CHAIN OFFERS SINGLE-USE DIGITAL CAMERA FOR $20
Pure Digital Technologies, a scrappy start-up company devoted to bringing
digital photography to the masses, makes the world's first truly digital
one-time-use camera. It has been on the market for more than a year but went
big time Aug. 23 when CVS, the nation's largest drugstore chain, put it on
its shelves. The Disney World resorts and Longs Drugs will be selling it
later this year as well.
Pure Digital is a $19.99 digital camera, with a color preview screen and the
ability to delete pictures. After you bring it in for processing, you get a
free picture CD along with your prints.
Industry giant Kodak has been heavily advertising its Plus Digital
one-time-use camera. But that is a film camera with no preview screen. The
"digital" component is a free picture CD bundled in.
Digital cameras have transformed photography. Millions of consumers have
replaced their film cameras with digital models. Shutterbugs also have
flocked to cell phones with built-in cameras. The trend has decimated film
sales. One bright spot for traditional camera makers: those small,
one-time-use cameras that sell for $4 to $10, an area Kodak and rival Fuji
dominate. But market tracker IDC projects that sales of those click-and-toss
cameras will peak this year at 460 million units - to be eclipsed by camera
phones.
Pure Digital first exhibited at a photo trade show in 2002. A few months
later the company was testing a single-use digital camera at Wisconsin
Walgreen's stores and some Ritz Camera Centers. While the camera was cheap -
$11- it lacked a preview screen. Sales weren't as strong as expected.
Engineers went to work on a second-generation unit, with the preview screen,
which began shipping this summer to Ritz stores for $19.95. Now it's headed
to CVS.
Pure Digital's cameras are produced in China. After the consumer uses them,
they are shipped by the retailer to a recycling facility in Chicago, where
they're refurbished and repackaged. Kaplan won't say how many times the
cameras are recycled, but the industry average for standard single-use
cameras is five to eight times.
------------------------
From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the
National Waste Prevention Coalition:
I was contacted by the Forte Group in Washington, DC, which is organizing an
"environmental protection introductory mission" to China, in cooperation
with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The trip, scheduled for Nov. 6-13,
2004, will include visits to Shanghai, Beijing and other cities. Meetings
are scheduled with regional and national environmental and economic
officials, as well as people from the private sector in China. One
scheduled briefing will cover "on-farm" projects to handle organic wastes.
Forte is inviting representatives of companies in the U.S. environmental
protection industry to come on this trip. The cost is $2,000 for company
representatives and $2,500 for their spouses. That includes transportation,
hotels, some meals, and interpretation.
According to Forte, "China is one of the fastest growing economies in the
world. However, at the expense of its development, China's environmental
situation remains grave. The total amount of main pollutants remains huge
and the trend of ecological degradation has not yet been brought under
effective control. In addressing the situation, China is expected to spend
$84 billion on environmental protection to meet the goals of its current
five-year plan (2001-2005). During this 5-year period, the central
government is expected to make 11.4 percent ($9.7 billion) of the
investment, while 34 percent will come from provincial and local governments
and the remaining 55 percent from business enterprises. Beijing alone is
projected to spend at least $5.4 billion on environmental clean-up in
preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games."
For information on this trip, contact: John Li, Forte International, at
john [ AT ] forteintl [ DOT ] com or at (202) 628-8226, Ext. 16.
------------------------
Link to "Skin Deep," the Environmental Working Group's database that
assesses the safety of ingredients in personal care products (first seen in
the Waste Cap of Lincoln, NE, newsletter):
http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep/browse_products.php
------------------------
Excerpted from an article by Scott Maben in the 8/17/04 Eugene (Oregon)
Register-Guard:
GROUNDBREAKING RECYCLING NON-PROFIT SWITCHES FOCUS TO REUSE, REDUCTION
A non-profit group that introduced recycling to Lane County, Oregon, and
blazed new trails across Oregon's recycling landscape is reinventing itself
- forced by its own success to change.
BRING Recycling in Eugene largely has accomplished what it set out to do
when it formed in 1971: Get a lot of people to stop throwing away a lot of
stuff. Today, more than 90 percent of households in the county do just that.
So, the organization has shifted focus to its planned new Planet Improvement
Center - a combination headquarters, used materials warehouse and education
base in Glenwood. And it will do a full-court press to encourage people to
consume less and think more about what they buy and use.
The evolution was inevitable. BRING is no longer the area's main collector
and processor of recyclables. Garbage haulers pick up most household
recyclables, and Weyerhaeuser handles the bulk of paper and cardboard in the
area. Recycling has become big business, and that has left community
non-profit groups that championed the practice looking to stay relevant.
"The world has changed in 30 years, and our role is just not there anymore,"
said Julie Daniel, BRING's director.
Instead, BRING is turning its attention to the problem of consumption, which
soars despite the success of recycling. A family of four generates five tons
of waste a year. "It's clear that recycling has been enormously successful
as a strategy for resource conservation, but has it really conserved
resources? No," Daniel said. "We're still making more and more and more
waste."
Moving toward reducing waste, rather than recycling common materials, is a
natural next step for groups that pioneered recycling, said Jerry Powell,
editor and publisher of Resource Recycling magazine and founding chairman of
the Association of Oregon Recyclers. "Maybe we should focus now on what we
are using and if we are using the right things," Powell said. "(Recycling
is) not primetime, front-page news anymore," Powell added. "We're public
works now. There's just not the fervor that would follow issues such as
forestry and salmon."
Yet groups like BRING are still very much relevant, he said. They push for
programs to keep products with heavy metals and other hazardous waste out of
landfills. "If we detoxified the waste stream, isn't that better than
worrying about doing more glass bottles, which is just sand?" Powell said.
"Shouldn't we be more worried about the ounces of mercury than the pounds of
sand in the landfill?"
Many community groups that helped start recycling have faded away, said Meg
Lynch, of Portland Metro, and president of the Oregon Recycling Markets
Development Corp. "It's been a really long time since non-profits had
primary responsibility for collecting and marketing recyclables," Lynch
said. "Unless you want to give up and go home, you have to morph like BRING
is doing."
BRING still handles the recyclables that self-haulers drop off at the
county's transfer station in Glenwood. It also has a contract to provide
recycling education services for the county, and it coordinates recycling
for special events, including the Oregon Country Fair. These services, along
with the sale of building materials, support the group's $700,000 annual
budget, most of which goes to 17 full-time employees.
With its recycling revenue diminishing steadily, BRING is looking to other
ventures to fill the gap. Its deconstruction business, in which it
dismantles old buildings, is booming. And that in turn boosts the quality
and quantity of materials BRING sells at its materials yard.
"Reuse and promoting reuse is really where we have an opportunity to grow,"
Daniel said. But not at the cramped, junky site the group has leased from
the county for 33 years. BRING hopes to move late next year to a 2.8-acre
lot it owns. The group has raised $700,000 toward the $1.8 million price tag
for the Planet Improvement Center, a twist on the conventional home
improvement store. "We're trying to create a place that is so visually
compelling and interesting that it becomes an event to visit," Daniel said.
Visitors will be able to explore how to live a more sustainable life,
whether it's making a cold frame for vegetable starts from an old sliding
glass door, decorating pots with broken compact discs or replacing
disposable plastic water bottles with a more durable, reusable container.
It's all about enticing and inspiring people to alter their behavior, not
preaching change, Daniel said.
Still, Daniel doesn't expect the new emphasis on waste reduction and wise
consumption to be nearly as easy as teaching people to throw their
newspapers and milk cartons in the recycling bin instead of the trash can.
"Getting people to change their attitudes about what they buy and how they
use and think about used materials and discards is much more challenging,"
she said.
------------------------
Note from Tom: As you can see at the top of this installment, our Waste
Prevention Forum searchable archive is back online (with a new web address).
A big thanks to Darin Cosgrove with New Publishing in Brockville, Ontario,
for maintaining the archive for us!
- end -
|
