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16 June 08 - mail; receipts; cartridges; consumption; food; job; papers ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.nwpcarchive.org --------------------- Excerpted from a 6/2/08 Associated Press article (forwarded by Logan Harris): CREDIT CARD COMPANIES SENDING OUT LESS DIRECT MAIL Faced with a slumping economy, the nation's financial service companies have sharply cut back their direct mail so far this year. Such unsolicited mailings from banking, credit card, investment and mortgage loan companies fell 12.7 percent in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the same period a year ago, according to research complied by Chicago-based Mintel Comperemedia. The number of credit card and other offers landing in consumers' mailboxes remains staggering: Financial service companies sent an estimated 4.2 billion pieces of direct mail in the first quarter, down nearly 10 percent from 4.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Among financial services companies, credit card issuers cut back the most. Estimated mail volume for credit cards fell nearly 14 percent in the first quarter to roughly 2.6 billion mailings. Mortgage and loan companies cut their mail offers 6 percent. Of last year's top 10 credit card mailers, JPMorgan Chase reduced its direct mail the most - 34 percent - during the first quarter. London-based HSBC Holdings PLC followed with a 23.3 percent reduction, and Bank of America cut its direct mailings by 17.5 percent. Credit card issuer Capital One reduced its direct mail volume by 17.3 percent in the first quarter, as profit at the company's U.S. card business fell 8.8 percent. A few credit card companies - including American Express and Discover Financial Services - slightly increased their volume, while credit card mailings from Washington Mutual were up 55.8 percent in the quarter. The full article is at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24936919/ ------------------------- Article by Jen Aronoff in the 5/24/08 Charlotte (NC) News & Observer about how receipts from many retailers have gotten longer and longer, and the backlash against those long receipts: http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1083774.html ------------------------ Excerpted from an article by Melissa Allison in the 6/13/08 Seattle Times (forwarded by Josh Marx and Bill Reed): SEATTLE GROCERY CHAIN INTRODUCES DOUBLE-SIDED RECEIPTS PCC Natural Markets, a chain of co-op grocery stores in the Seattle area, have begun using receipts printed on both sides. This should cut the grocery chain's use of receipt paper 25 to 35 percent, PCC officials said. The company's roughly 40 cash registers now use more than 1,200 miles of receipt tape annually. PCC paid more for the machines than it would for ordinary receipt printers, although it did not disclose how much. The technology has been available since 2006 from NCR. Special receipt paper for the printers costs about 30 percent more than regular paper, because of the thermal printing technology used. The full article is at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/retailreport/2004474358_retailreport13.html --------------------- Excerpted from a message from Paul Dunn, City of Omaha Public Works Department, Environmental Quality Division, Omaha, NE: The user forum of the Center for a New American Dream's Responsible Purchasing Network has a series of questions and answers about remanufactured toner cartridges. This is a more comprehensive discussion than you usually find in forums, and well-organized: http://www.responsiblepurchasing.org/forum/user_messages.php?config[com_global][discussion_uid]=6&config[com_global][thread_uid]=23 --------------------- Excerpted from a 5/7/08 article by Queenie Wong for the McClatchy Newspapers: U.S. CONSUMERS RANK LAST IN WORLD SURVEY OF GREEN HABITS Americans rank last in a new National Geographic-sponsored survey released Wednesday that compares environmental consumption habits in 14 countries. Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories - housing, transportation and consumer goods - according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood. The rankings, called "Greendex," are the first to compare lifestyles and behaviors of consumers in multiple countries, according to the National Geographic Society. It plans to conduct the 100-plus question survey annually and considers trends more important than yearly scores, said Terry Garcia of National Geographic. India and Brazil tied for the highest score - 60 points out of a hundred. U.S. consumers scored 44.9. In between, China scored 56.1, Mexico 54.2, Hungary 53.2, Russia 52.4, Great Britain 50.2, Germany 50.2, Australia 50.2, Spain 50, Japan 49.1, France 48.7 and Canada 48.5. Results are based on 1,000 online respondents per country interviewed in January and February by GlobeScan, an international polling firm based in Toronto. The consumer choice rankings were adjusted for factors in which individuals have no control, such as climate and the availability of mass transit. To see how you score, take an abbreviated version of the survey. It's at: http://event.nationalgeographic.com/greendex/calculator.html The full article is at: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/36248.html --------------------- Excerpted from the commencement speech by TV science educator Bill Nye at Harvey Mudd College in California this spring, as quoted in the 6/15/08 New York Times: "(Around the world) people are walking less and driving more; we’re putting more cars on the road every week. Put roughly, if everyone on earth were to consume, drive, and especially use energy at the prodigious rate that each of us does here in the United States, we would need two more Earths. We don’t have two more Earths. We barely have one." --------------------- "12 Steps to Waste Reduction in Your Diet," from Christy Morgan's Los Angeles-based "Green Adventures TV" blog (forwarded by Dan Roloff): http://greenadventures.tv/?p=10 --------------------- Job opening for a Waste Diversion Education Coordinator for the Boulder County Resource Conservation Division, Boulder, CO (first seen in the Resource Recycling online newsletter): http://agency.governmentjobs.com/boulder/default.cfm Scroll down and click on "Waste Diversion Education Coordinator." The monthly salary range for this position is $3,274 to $4,151. The deadline for applications is June 27, 2008. --------------------- Call for papers for the International Conference on Solid Waste Technology and Management March 15-18, 2009, in Philadelphia (forwarded by Maggie Clarke): http://www2.widener.edu/~sxw0004/call.html The deadline for submission of abstracts is Oct. 31, 2008. - end -