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11 May 06 - paper; survey; milk; cartoon; garage sales; simplicity; revolution
** 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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From Karen Fiedler, Waukesha County Parks and Land Use, solid waste program,
Waukesha, WI:
Has anyone got documentation from companies that manufacture printers about
using paper that has already been printed on one side? Any technical issues
with increased cleaning of rollers, maintenance, etc.? I want to model a
program in our county after the Seattle PaperCuts program. Thanks - and
keep up the good work!
E-mail: kfiedler ( A T ) waukeshacounty ( D O T ) gov
(Note: The website for PaperCuts, the City of Seattle's internal employee
paper reduction program, is at: http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/papercuts
)
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Link to results of a survey on young people's attitudes about the
environment, done by the Jane Goodall Institute and the Weekly Reader
(forwarded by Marcia Rutan):
http://www.janegoodall.org/news/article-detail.asp?Entry_ID=402&Category_ID=
4
According to the survey, one in four pre-teens and teens say they are
"very worried" about environmental issues, particularly pollution, global
warming and loss of natural habitat. Nearly 20,000 students were surveyed.
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From Michelle Gaither, Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource
Center, Seattle, WA:
In the Puget Sound/Seattle area, we can recycle milk cartons. I am not sure
if this is a recyclable commodity nationally. I purchased a half-gallon of
Safeway-brand organic milk (which I am supposed to be boycotting because
they are not allowing their cows out to pasture - but I was in a pinch), and
as I opened the carton, I noticed this round plastic spout and screw-on lid,
instead of the traditional way of opening a carton.
I am assuming this will cause some extra effort for recycling processors
(and/or the diligent home recyclers that will make the effort to tear the
plastic spout out). Obviously, this does not follow Design for the
Environment principles and adds to the life-cycle impacts of this packaging.
E-mail: gaithermj (AT) quidnunc (DOT) net
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From Tom Watson, King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA, and the
National Waste Prevention Coalition:
CORRECTION
In an opinion piece written by Giles Slade about product obsolescence that
ran in the Waste Prevention Forum on 4/19/06, it stated, "Konica-Minolta's
stock surged this month after it announced it would abandon its film-based
products." This may be misleading, because Konica-Minolta actually
announced it was getting out of both film cameras AND digital cameras, as
well as the film and photo paper business. Thanks to Maggie Clarke for
pointing this out.
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From Susan Salterberg, Center for Energy and Environmental Education,
University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA:
I ran across a great cartoon, which the listserv might enjoy:
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/t/trash.asp
. (It is from a British
service that sells rights to cartoons.)
E-mail: salterberg [A T] mchsi [D O T] com
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Link to a Gannett News Service website with articles and tips on garage
sales:
http://battlecreekenquirer.gns.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Categ
ory=LIFEMOMENTS04
This website includes downloadable signs, price tags
and sold tags for garage sales.
This website also includes a 4/26/06 Gannett News Service article about
"highway garage sales":
http://battlecreekenquirer.gns.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20060426/LIFEMOMENTS04/604240303&category=LIFEMOMENTS04&template=spc
In
this new trend, garage or yard sales are held along older highways, for
stretches of 10 miles or more. These sales combine reuse with rural
economic development; they often bring destination shoppers to areas that
may not see a lot of visitors.
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Link to the website for Simple Living America, a new nonprofit membership
organization:
http://www.simplelivingamerica.org
Simple Living America is part of the Center for Religion, Ethics & Social
Policy at Cornell University. It is also affiliated with "Simple Living
with Wanda Urbanska," a television series that runs on Public Broadcasting
Service stations nationwide.
Simple Living America is sponsoring a national public conference Nov. 3-5,
2006, in Leavenworth, WA, called "Simple Living and the Rekindling of Public
Life: Sustainable Business, Local Community and the Common Good." For more
information, see: http://www.simplelivingamerica.org/events
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Excerpted from "On Earth Day," an essay by Seattle writer and activist Alex
Steffen, posted 4/21/06 on the WorldChanging website:
"Green is the new black." No buzz-phrase better sums up both the excitement
many of us feel about the blooming environmental and social consciousness
around us and the essential hollowness of the answers being promoted by many
newly-minted eco-pundits.
The flood of environmental magazine cover stories, documentaries and
advertisements has pushed us over a public-opinion threshold, which is
great. But the solutions being touted by many of our new-found allies are
themselves creating a new kind of problem - people who should know better
are selling a muddle-headed, style-over-substance, "lite green"
environmentalism at a time when we need to be rebuilding our civilization to
avoid disaster. To be blunt, we're being sold out.
People are being told to buy organic cotton T-shirts, keep their tires
inflated and recycle their beer bottles. But the reality of the situation is
that the impacts of these sorts of actions are totally out of whack with the
magnitude of the planetary problems bearing down upon us. Those of us who
care about the future of the planet need to reclaim this moment from those
who would have people think that our biggest challenge is picking the most
stylish vegan shoes.
Most of the harm we cause in the world is done far from our sight, created
through the workings of vast systems whose workings are often intentionally
hidden from us, and over which we have very little influence as single
individuals. Alone, we are essentially powerless to change anything that
matters. We can't shop our way to sustainability.
I believe we are bombarded with messages encouraging us to take the "small
steps" precisely because those steps are a threat to no one. They don't
depress sales of fashionable crap we don't need. They don't bring people
into the streets or sweep corrupt politicians from office. They certainly
don't threaten the powerful, entrenched interests who are growing
fantastically rich off keeping us locked into the systems that make our
lives such a burden on the planet and impoverish our brothers and sisters
elsewhere.
We don't need more carpool lanes. We need to eliminate fossil fuels from our
economy. We don't need more recycling bins. We need to create a closed-loop,
biomimetic, neobiological industrial system. We don't need to attend a
tree-planting ceremony. We need to become expert at ecosystem management and
gardening the planet. We don't need another unscented laundry detergent. We
need to ban the vast majority of the toxic chemicals upon which our
lifestyles currently float, and invent a completely non-toxic green
chemistry. We don't need lite green fashions. We need a bright green
revolution. We need to make people participants, not consumers. We need
answers that address peoples' lives, not their lifestyles. The world is
listening. It's our obligation to tell it a better story.
(The full essay is at: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004343.html
On that same page,
below the essay, are comments that readers have submitted.)
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