Today's Topics:
Fwd: Keep America Wasting
recycled content laws in Wisconsin (2 msgs)
Smithsonian Letter re: "Recovered Backyard Objects"
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Loop-Detect: GreenYes:98/82
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Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:45:27 -0500
From: "Bill Sheehan" <bill_sheehan@mindspring.com>
Subject: Fwd: Keep America Wasting
[forwarded from Gary Drury]
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
BRUNSWICK (GEORGIA) NEWS, MARCH 28, 1998
The Editors:
I periodically read articles in the Brunswick News about the organizations
known as Keep America Beautiful, Keep Georgia Beautiful, and the local
affiliate, Keep Brunswick and the Golden Isles Beautiful. In regards to the
article in your paper of March 20, entitled 'KGB Fighting Litter in
Georgia', I believe the public is being misled. 'Keep Georgia Beautiful',
which is funded by our tax dollars through the Georgia Department of
Community Affairs, states that "Georgia's recycling rate of 33% rates among
the top 10 in the nation."
About half of what was counted in the Georgia survey is material not
normally counted as solid waste, such as iron and steel, contaminated soil,
and concrete. If you eliminate these materials, the rate drops to about
19%, well below the national average of 25%. The DCA is promoting landfill
disposal rather than focusing on recycling and waste reduction. The funders
for 'Keep America Beautiful' reads like a who's who of corporate
environmental polluters. It is a shame that the well intentioned public is
being used by polluting industries by being involved in P.R.-friendly
roadside cleanup campaigns. Much of the recycled material used in Georgia
factories is brought in from other states because we bury most of our
resources in landfills.
The 'Bottle Bill' which was defeated in the Georgia Legislature,
would have greatly increased our recycling rate and would have very
substantially reduced roadside litter but was opposed, again at taxpayers
expense, by 'Keep Georgia Beautiful'.
Environmental organizations across the state and across the nation oppose
these pawns of polluting industry. It is a wonderful thing for individuals
or organizations to clean up the roadsides in a community, but not at the
expense of taxpayers and especially not under the auspices of corporations
which produce bottles and containers and build and maintain landfills.
There must be an incentive to reduce, reuse, and recycle. If citizens want
to know the true state of the environment, they should contact
non-governmental organizations, and not industry and tax funded
governmental organizations.
Gary G. Drury
President
Glynn Environmental Coalition
Brunswick, Georgia
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 07:56:34 -0600
From: "John Reindl" <reindl@co.dane.wi.us>
Subject: recycled content laws in Wisconsin
Hi Helen -
All of Wisconsin's bills and statutes, as well as most of its
admistrative codes, are on the web page:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us
The recycled content law for plastic containers is ss. 100.297; for
recycled newsprint, it's in chapter 287 with our other recycling
requirements.
To read the downloads, you will need Adobe Acrobat 3.01, which is
available as a free download.
Let me know if you have any problems getting this stuff.
John
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 17:08:36 -0800
> To: reindl@co.dane.wi.us
> From: Helen Spiegelman <helens@axionet.com>
> Subject: Re: Out of state waste, recycled content laš#n Wisconsin
> Hi, John:
>
> Thanks for posting your response to Rod. I wonder where I can find out more
> about the following:
>
> >Also, we have a minimum recycled content law for plastic containers, with
> an exemption for certain food and cosmetic containers if the FDA hasn't
> approved recycled content. This law is has not had the controversy of the
> recycled content in newsprint law.
>
> Are these laws on a state website where I could read them?
>
> Thanks,
> Helen Spiegelman
> Vancouver, British Columbia
> CANADA
>
> 604/731-8464
> 604/731-8463 (fax)
>
reindl@co.dane.wi.us
(608)267-1533 - fax
(608)267-8815 - phone
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 07:56:34 -0600
From: "John Reindl" <reindl@co.dane.wi.us>
Subject: recycled content laws in Wisconsin
Hi Helen -
All of Wisconsin's bills and statutes, as well as most of its
admistrative codes, are on the web page:
http://www.legis.state.wi.us
The recycled content law for plastic containers is ss. 100.297; for
recycled newsprint, it's in chapter 287 with our other recycling
requirements.
To read the downloads, you will need Adobe Acrobat 3.01, which is
available as a free download.
Let me know if you have any problems getting this stuff.
John
> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 17:08:36 -0800
> To: reindl@co.dane.wi.us
> From: Helen Spiegelman <helens@axionet.com>
> Subject: Re: Out of state waste, recycled content laws in Wisconsin
> Hi, John:
>
> Thanks for posting your response to Rod. I wonder where I can find out more
> about the following:
>
> >Also, we have a minimum recycled content law for plastic containers, with
> an exemption for certain food and cosmetic containers if the FDA hasn't
> approved recycled content. This law is has not had the controversy of the
> recycled content in newsprint law.
>
> Are these laws on a state website where I could read them?
>
> Thanks,
> Helen Spiegelman
> Vancouver, British Columbia
> CANADA
>
> 604/731-8464
> 604/731-8463 (fax)
>
reindl@co.dane.wi.us
(608)267-1533 - fax
(608)267-8815 - phone
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:00:37 -0800 (PST)
From: "David A. Kirkpatrick" <david@kirkworks.com>
Subject: Smithsonian Letter re: "Recovered Backyard Objects"
The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball in Newport,
RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his backyard and sends the
stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute, labeling them with scientific
names, insisting that they are actual archaeological finds.
This guy really exists and does this in his spare time! Anyway...here's the
actual response from the Smithsonian Institution. Bear this in mind next
time you think you are challenged in your duty to respond to a difficult
situation in writing.
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078
Dear Mr. Williams:
Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "93211-D,
layer seven, next to the clothesline post...Hominid skull." We have given
this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and
regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents
conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two
million years ago.
Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of
the variety that one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be
"Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought
to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of
us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to
contradiction with your findings.
However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the
specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:
1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically
fossilized bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
proto-homonids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent with the
common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating Pliocene
clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.
This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you
have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems
to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let
us say that:
A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed
on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.
It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to
have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our
lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly
due to carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic
record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were were produced
prior to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce
wildly inaccurate results.
Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science
Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen
the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino.
Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of
your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species
name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be
Latin.
However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating
specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a Hominid fossil, it is,
nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of
work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our
Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of
the specimens you have previously submitted to the
Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen
upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your Newport back
yard.
We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in
your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it.
We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories
surrounding the trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a
structural matrix that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur
you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm
Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.
Yours in Science,
Harvey Rowe
Chief Curator-Antiquities
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End of GreenYes Digest V98 #82
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