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31 Jan 06 - Real Simple; hand dryers; packaging; shopping; RFP; Wal-Mart; job; printers
** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM **
-- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition
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Forum archive: http://www.nwpcarchive.org
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The first two messages follow up on a 1/19/06 posting that mentioned a new
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program, "Real Simple," a weekly
television version of Real Simple magazine.
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Excerpted from a message from Anne McLaughlin, City of Portland, Office of
Sustainable Development, Solid Waste & Recycling Program, Portland OR:
I thought that the Real Simple TV show might be a good thing, so I watched
one episode and then skimmed a tape of another. I found the first one
appalling, and wrote Oregon Public Broadcasting (our local affiliate) to say
so. I accused the show of greenwashing by calling it "real simple," when
what they really mean is "real convenient."
The episode I watched featured a "simple" party table - its "simplicity" was
in the fact that nothing on the table would be saved, it would all go
straight into the garbage. The example was a children's birthday party.
Use green wrapping paper to cover the table, and to wrap some shoeboxes for
a centerpiece. Poke holes in the wrapped shoeboxes and insert large
colorful lollipops kind of like a row of flowers growing out of the
shoeboxes. Give each child a paperboard "Chinese food" carton filled with
crayons, so they can draw and color on whatever. And of course disposable
plates, etc. At the end of the party, just bring the garbage can over to
the table, bundle everything on the table up into the wrapping paper
"tablecloth," and toss it all away. Crayons and all. Aargh.
E-mail: amclaughlin ( A T ) ci ( D O T ) portland ( D O T ) or ( D O T ) us
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Excerpted from a message from Marcia Rutan, Snohomish County Solid Waste
Management Division, Waste Prevention and Recycling, Everett, WA:
"Real Simple" has co-opted the "simple" trend and they are twisting it to
mean convenience. I found it pretty much worthless to watch. Well, life in
America - and thank goodness for all those simplicity veterans who have
established a strong front in another direction!
E-mail: Marcia [D O T] Rutan [A T] co [D O T] snohomish [D O T] wa [D O T] us
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Excerpted from a message from Lisa Friend, RE Sources, Bellingham, WA:
One of our local school districts sent us this query:
- Do you know of anyone that has tracked the payback-time for installing
hand dryers in their restrooms? I've pulled a few cost comparisons off the
Internet, but am looking for actual people/businesses I can talk to
regarding the maintenance, vandalism, actual costs to install, etc., for
hand dryers. Of course the sources that are selling the hand dryers are
quoting huge savings - but the Energy Solutions Resources page from
Washington State University says the Washington Department of General
Administration has calculations showing costs of $100/year HIGHER using hand
dryers. That data is from 1990. So who do I believe?
If anyone has any data on this issue, please let me know. Thanks.
Lisa's e-mail: recycle (AT) re-sources (DOT) org
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Excerpted from a message from Daniel Sarasio Meyer, teacher, Forest City
High School, Forest City, IA (forwarded by Susan Salterberg):
I am working on a lesson that will involve finding a minimum surface area
for a given volume, using some calculus. One aspect of the lesson will be
for the students to contact businesses and inform them of our findings on
their product, to see if we can elicit some responses from the companies
about packaging reduction.
The problem is that many of the major food businesses don't have very good
contact information on their websites. So, what I am looking for is if
anyone might have a consumer-watch website or something that would have a
good list of contact information for many of the major food businesses, so
that we might actually receive responses from them. I found a good one for
Kraft, but most other contact information is not worth pursuing. Thanks for
any help.
E-mail: dmeyer (AT) forestcity (DOT) k12 (DOT) ia (DOT) us
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Excerpted from a 12/2/05 article by Mark Engler in the Chicago Reader:
THE CHURCH OF STOP SHOPPING HITS THE ROAD
Reverend Billy, the charismatic leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, is
the creation of New York performance artist and avant-garde theater veteran
Bill Talen. His Jimmy Swaggart-like persona may be rooted in parody, but
Talen - who draws inspiration from ACT UP, the Guerrilla Girls, Lenny Bruce,
and Abbie Hoffman - approaches his work with unusual seriousness. The
reverend is his main focus year-round; he even earns a modest living from
the character, doing lectures and residencies with arts organizations. When
his choir belts out lyrics like "So it's Christmastime, now let's stop our
shopping / Consumer confidence, yes oh yes it's dropping," it shows off
vocal chops honed in weekly rehearsals. And when Talen delivers his sermons
he is genuinely red-faced and beaded with sweat.
"We really are trying to figure out the addiction of consumerism," Talen
says. "Why do Americans shop this way? The advertisements persuade us that
consumerism itself is democracy. They persuade us that it's normal. But we
think it's unprecedented."
"From the protests against store construction, to 'slow food,' to fair
trade, which is really hitting its stride in Europe, resistance to
consumerism is coming in different forms," he says.
Reverend Billy recently hit the road with 30 fellow activists and performers
for the "Shopocalypse Tour," a month-long cross-country trek that started a
few days after Thanksgiving in New York City and ended with an
anti-consumerist Christmas celebration December 25 in Los Angeles.
Is Talen, then, a sacrilegious ironist or his own manner of true believer?
When asked about his religion, he explains that he and his supporters are
"trying to put the 'odd' back in God." He says he feels a connection with
the mermaid trapped in the Starbucks logo, a siren modeled from a
centuries-old engraving, whose once-bare breasts were air-brushed in the
course of the corporation's expansion. Talen exhorts Starbucks customers to
"take out your red lipstick and put those nipples back on that goddess!"
Yet just when it all seems like a joke, the mania in his voice stills and
Talen touches on a dilemma that many mainstream theologians grapple with as
the holiday season grows ever more commodified: that, in our frantic rush
for last-minute purchases, the mall can become its own glittering deity. "I
don't believe in that god," Reverend Billy says. "Do you?"
Note: Reverend Billy's website is at: http://www.revbilly.com
(forwarded by David Assmann)
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From David Allaway, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Solid Waste
Policy & Program Development, Portland, OR:
OREGON REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS - WASTE PREVENTION AND REUSE
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has released a Request
for Proposals from consultants for services related to research, information
gathering, and program evaluation in the area of solid waste prevention and
reuse. DEQ expects to contract with a firm with significant experience in
research, program evaluation, solid waste prevention, and environmental
management. The selected contractor(s) will conduct work in five task
areas: 1) evaluate recent efforts by the State of Oregon to reduce solid
waste generation through prevention and reuse, 2) evaluate local government
experience (in Oregon) with and capacity to support waste prevention and
reuse, 3) research and evaluate non-government efforts (in Oregon) aimed at
reducing waste generation, including an assessment of relevant industries
such as reusable building material salvage and computer reuse, 4) research
and evaluate waste prevention and reuse efforts outside of Oregon, and 5)
evaluate the relationship between waste prevention/reuse and broader
environmental outcomes and objectives. The contract will be for an
approximate five-month term. An estimated $65,000 has been budgeted for
this project, but DEQ will consider all proposals not exceeding $75,000.
Proposals must be received by 12 noon on Feb. 27, 2006.
The RFP and associated official solicitation information can be viewed on
the website of the Oregon Procurement Information Network (ORPIN) at:
http://orpin.oregon.gov/open.dll/welcome
To download the RFP you will
need to register as an ORPIN user, which can be done at no cost.
E-mail: Allaway [ DOT ] David [ AT ] deq [ DOT ] state [ DOT ] or [ DOT ] us
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Link to a 1/18/06 press release from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., announcing a new
statewide plastic bag recycling program in California elementary schools
(forwarded by Laurie Stoerkel):
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/060118/20060118005020.html?.v=1
Note from Laurie: For a few thousand dollars - a mere pittance for this
behemoth - Wal-Mart is purchasing advertising in schools, while allowing
consumers to assuage their conscience about using plastic bags. Ack!
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Link to a job opening for a Sustainability Manager for Multnomah County in
Portland, OR (forwarded by Katie Jensen):
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/multnomah/default.cfm
Where it says
Enter Keywords, type in "Sustainability," then click on Go and scroll down.
This job has a salary range of $53,000 - $74,200 annually. The deadline for
applications is Feb. 17, 2006.
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Excerpted from an article by Pui-Wing Tam in the 1/26/06 Wall Street
Journal:
REFILLING YOUR PRINTER WITH INK IS BECOMING CHEAPER, EASIER
Even as computer prices have steadily dropped, the cost of one high-tech
necessity has remained stubbornly high. Printer cartridges are so costly
that printer giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) has long made more than two-thirds
of its profit from selling them. Now, in a move that could save consumers
hundreds of dollars in replacement costs, several major retailers are
starting to offer speedy refill services that replace the ink rather than
the entire cartridge.
Drugstore chain Walgreen Co. is announcing an ink-refill service - at less
than half the cost of buying new cartridges - in 1,500 of its stores, with
the rollout starting in mid-March. Many of the 400 stores in the Chicago
area will feature the service, Walgreen spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce said.
With an eye toward launching a national service, office-supply chain
OfficeMax Inc. is pilot-testing an ink-refill service in 40 stores in the
Chicago area. And Office Depot Inc. is also testing an ink-refill service in
15 stores in Minnesota and North Carolina. The new services allow consumers
to get their cartridges refilled quickly while they shop, rather than having
to fill the cartridges themselves as the do-it-yourself kits on the market
require.
In Norwalk, Iowa, Matt Davidson says he has been going to a Walgreen store
that has pilot-tested ink refills for the past six months. The drugstore
refilled his black-ink HP cartridge within minutes at ''half the price it
would normally cost me for a new cartridge,'' he says.
The cost of ink has long been a source of frustration for computer users.
The price of ink per milliliter from big printer manufacturers has been
rising at about 1 percent a year. Many of the big printer makers are also
getting stingier with the amount of ink in a cartridge. For example, while a
popular older HP black-ink cartridge, the 45A, cost $29.99 and had 42
milliliters of ink, its newer counterpart, the HP 96, costs the same but has
only 21 milliliters of ink. The new services strike a blow at a major profit
center for companies such as Lexmark International Inc. and HP, which rely
heavily on ink for recurring revenue and profits.
Tuan Tran, an HP vice president of ink and toner supplies, says consumers
should be wary of refills. Since HP designs its printers and its ink
cartridges to work together as one seamless system, a refilled cartridge may
not be as reliable and can cause streaking on printouts, he says. Consumer
Reports magazine has said that consumers should "be wary of off-brands" and
has "found brand-name cartridges to have better print quality overall." A
2003 study by research firm QualityLogic Inc. found that 54 percent of the
remanufactured cartridges it tested had problems, compared with just 1
percent of HP color-ink cartridges and 6 percent of H-P black-ink
cartridges.
Walgreen is offering a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee for its ink-refill
service. The stores will charge $12.99 to $14.99 for a black-ink refill,
about 60 percent less than the price of some black-ink cartridges from HP,
Canon Inc. and others.
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