GreenYes Digest V98 #3

GreenYes Mailing List and Newsgroup (greenyes@ucsd.edu)
Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:35:09 -0500


GreenYes Digest Thu, 8 Jan 98 Volume 98 : Issue 3

Today's Topics:
GreenYes Digest V98 #2
meeting 'recycling' goals--send me your ideas
More Great Info Re Global Warming: "Climate: Making Sense & Making
Producer responsibility AND discard malls
questions on battery recycling

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Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 10:06:57 -0500 From: "Lisa Beavers" <lbeavers@town.ci.chapel-hill.nc.us> Subject: GreenYes Digest V98 #2

I spoke with Ms. McGuire as well and felt she was open to hearing what I had to say. But in the course of our conversation, she did mention that the Tyvek insert was part of a Corporate initiated "brand awareness campaign" that in the future will include products such as teflon, corian, and others. So, unless DuPont Corp. can be convinced otherwise, we might be calling about a teflon coated advertisement in a couple of months.

>Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:58:08 -0600 >From: "John Reindl" <reindl@co.dane.wi.us> >Subject: Tyvek Contact at DuPont > >For those of you in the paper recycling area that have some concern=20 >about the Tyvek ads that were in the newspapers and magazines, I=20 >thought you might like to know that DuPont is receptive to hearing=20 >about the effects that their ads are having on recycling. > >They are also interested in helping out to the extent that they=20 >can, including having people rip out the ads and send them back to=20 >DuPont as was noted in an earlier email message.=20 > >In my conversation with DuPont today, they said that they will do=20 >some more background investigations and plan to get back to me=20 >with more information, which I will pass along to the email list. > >My comment to DuPont was that it would be best for the industry to=20 >establish some policies to prevent incompatible materials (Tyvek,=20 >Mylar, packets of shampoo or body lotion, UV covers, etc) from being=20 >placed in magazines or newspapers. > >If you would like to talk to DuPont yourself, the contact is Maryann=20 >McGuire at (800)448-9835. > >Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. > >John Reindl, Recycling Manager >Dane County, WI > >reindl@co.dane.wi.us >(608)267-1533 - fax >(608)267-8815 - phone > Lisa Beavers lbeavers@town.ci.chapel-hill.nc.us phone: 919-968-2788 fax: 919-932-2900 "Life is too short not to travel to strange and exotic places and then realize you forgot the pink tablets......."

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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 22:08:09 EST From: Jango <Jango@aol.com> Subject: meeting 'recycling' goals--send me your ideas

Regarding Alameda County not making its 50% goal, 50% is quite a bold=20 goal, especially if people aren't playing with numbers the way that they=20 have in other parts of the country.

One thing that is rarely clear is exactly what is meant by 50%. 50% of=20 what? If C&D debris is going into your landfills and wasn't when your law=20 was passed, someone has to do the math to back out the C&D. If at least=20 some commercial waste wasn't coming there and now is (or vice versa),=20 someone's got to do the math. If you haven't mandated commercial=20 recycling and markets go down, a lot more material will find its way into=20 your landfill. There are probably scores of other special case issues. In=20 PA C&D is clearly defined as NOT part of the mix...in fact generally C&D=20 goes to C&D landfills that are much cheaper. We also do not include a lot=20 of manufacturing, pre-consumer, scrap, wood, etc. stuff in our=20 percentages.=20

More detail on what you guys are up to would be interesting, although I=20 think a 39% rate is pretty darn good. Seems without extended producer=20 responsibility, design for recycling and source reduction on the=20 manufacturing and distribution side of the equation going over 35% - 40%=20 is hard when markets are hovering the way they are over the toilet. Good=20 waste reduction measures like grasscycling, pallet reuse networks,=20 building materials exchanges, etc. can also take you a long way towards=20 reducing the denominator in the recycling rate equation.

Any basic breakout of how the 39% splits out? You guys are doing a good=20 job if the numbers are true...

David Biddle Philadelphia, PA 215-247-2974 (voice and fax)

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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 11:58:04 -0600 From: Missouri Environmental Fund <mef@moenvfund.org> Subject: More Great Info Re Global Warming: "Climate: Making Sense & Making

An excellent read on changing the way we think about global warming, this=20 is an excellent anti-gloom & doom white paper by Amory & Hunter Lovins of=20 the Rocky Mountain Insititute, entitled "Climate: Making Sense & Making=20 Money." Includes solid, positive examples to get people thinking=20 differently about resources and energy management. Find it on the web: www.rmi.org/catalog/climate

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Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 17:35:58 EST From: UrbanOr <UrbanOr@aol.com> Subject: Producer responsibility AND discard malls

1/7/97 =20 To: Bill Sheehan, Helen Spiegelman, Greenyes@UCSD.edu From: Dan Knapp Re: Producer responsibility and discard malls: two essential strategies= for achieving zero waste=20 =20 My thanks to Helen Spiegelman for her thoughtful response to the Newsweek article on the future of garbage. I have always agreed that manufacturers should design products for reuse and recycling and work toward zero waste= in their internal operations. Zero waste advocates should resolutely keep the pressure on them to do so. Also, I believe at least some manufacturers= have already travelled quite far down this road, having heard many convincing presentations from them at various conferences. =20 =20 But there is no =93vs.=94 required in our discussion, because there is no contradiction or conflict between producer responsibility and discard= malls. Both are needed to achieve =93zero waste, or darn close to it.=94 Each has= a major role to play in the transition and new structure. =20 =20 Also, we don=92t need to envision a simplified commercial ecology based on vertical integration and giant companies. Helen doesn=92t like that= scenario, and neither do I. I don=92t think it would be especially efficient,= either. We can design for a diverse ecology with plenty of room for small companies. Some will manufacture, some will distribute, and others will provide= disposal services through reuse and recycling. =20 =20 Discard malls will be necessary in any scenario for several reasons. = Nothing else will do the job. =20 =20 First, there are already hundreds of years=92 worth of products in the= world. They include the hardscapes of countless cities and towns, which were not produced by manufacturers or builders who had reuse and recycling in mind. They alnents will eventually wear out or go out of fashion. Without= something like discard malls, there will only be landfills, dirty MRFs, and= incinerators to handle the discards. We know from the last couple of decades of= attempting to unscramble the garbage omelet that sorting mixed wastes to recover recyclables mostly produc arbage. =20 =20 Third, some of the most voluminous of the twelve master discard categories= are not produced by big manufacturers anyway. They include plant debris,= soils, and putrescibles, as well as some subcategories of wood. Composition= studies I=92ve read suggest that these categories alone may compose from 40% to 50%= of a given community=92s supply of discards. =20 =20 Fourth, reuse is clearly the highest and best use for many discarded= products, way ahead of recycling. I use =93reuse=94 to mean using a product again in= its manufactured form, without the reprocessing that recycling requires. This= is the usage that the Reuse Development Organization has adopted. =20 =20 Some reusable products are designed for multiple passes through the= consumer=92s possession, such as reusable bottles, cloth diapers, or toner cartridges. = But many others, such as furniture, books, tools, or computers, are designed= for relative longevity. Returning them to the manufacturers would be= inefficient, and few manufacturers would care to set up secondhand stores to compete= with their own new products. Besides, one analysis shows that more than 15,000 reuse entrepreneurs =96 mom-and-pop secondhand stores, charities, and= others =96 are already in the field doing exactly that. Reuse competes for supply= with recycling, and for demand with newly manufactured things, and that=92s as= it should be. =20 =20 Fifth, many manufacturers have shown they prefer to delegate mandated recycling to professionals. Different states in the US have different systems. In California, recycling collectors and centers handle the redemption chores; in Oregon, grocery stores and distributors are the main collectors. =20 =20 Discard malls are an idea whose time has come, however they are financed= and structured. Other names for the phenomenon are: integrated resource= recovery facilities; discard management centers; serial materials recovery= facilities; resource recovery parks; recycling estates; and cluster material recovery facilities. Dr. Ernest Lowe (who co-wrote the EPA handbook on eco- ated in 1997 on writing an RFP for an eco-industrial park with resource recovery as the core technology. This exciting concept is currently being evaluated by a consultant to the= Economic Development Alliance for Business, with funding from the Alameda County Recycling Board. =20 I believe there are already many local and regional clusters of recycling, reuse, and composting businesses, although the phenomenon receives little attention in the trade press. These clusters arise naturally because= similar businesses like to cluster together, because zoning laws reinforce this desire, and because it makes good business sense. The main question before= us is whether such facilities should be designed to be comprehensive, or= allowed to grow up willy-nilly as they currently do. =20 =20 Helen=92s vision provides for one variant of these discard management= systems. She imagines facilities established and financed by consortia of producers. This vision differs from others more in financial underpinning and organizational structure than in function. Another alternative would be to add =93advance disposal fees=94 to products=92 prices, and let local= communities or regions use the fees to tailor facilities according to needs. There are= many options. Consumers end up footing the bill in any case. =20 =20 As for the unrecyclable products that Helen rightly refers to =96 vinyl= three- ring binders, lined dogfood bags, and foil potato-chip bags =96 there is a= third part of the zero waste strategy that deserves much more attention: banning.= =20 =20 In the end, we zero waste advocates need to support each other if we are to realize our common goals. Many of the ideas that seem on the surface to be divisions are actually synergistic offshoots of the same large concepts. = We have a big enough subject area that we can benefit from a division of= labor, with those interested in producer responsibility working on that issue, and those interested in discard malls working on building a few. =20 =20

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Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 10:32:30 -0600 From: Susan Snow <sksnow@1stnet.com> Subject: questions on battery recycling

Thank you John Rogers, John Gilkeson, Kelly McQueen for your answers on batteries. =20

However, no one has answered the question: What happens to the mercury once (most of) it is collected for recycling?=20 Is it used again for the same consumer products from which it came...or is some of its used to make agricultural chemicals, including fertilizers?

Susan Snow

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End of GreenYes Digest V98 #3 ******************************