[greenyes] BONA FIDE RECYCLERS?

[Helen Spiegelman <hspie@no.address>]

Hi all,

I'm on the program committee for a recycling conference here in BC in June. 
I am wanting to organize a session that would provide businesses & 
organizations helpful advice on CHOOSING A RECYCLER.

How can you tell a bona-fide recycler from a fly-by-night?

EXAMPLE: our regional district was contacted by a woman wanting to collect 
cellphones as a fund-raiser for a charity. How should she go about deciding 
where to take the cellphones she collects?

EXAMPLE: a local company here in the Vancouver area has been spamming 
advertisements for a program that will "revive and resuscitate any 'dead' 
disposable (non-rechargeable) alkaline batteries, for later re-use". He has 
signed up several dozen progressive organizations (environment groups, 
local elected officials, and counter-cultural merchants) who take back dead 
batteries -- and then purchase "revived" batteries from this contractor for 
sale to their customers. How do these merchants/organizations know if this 
guy's process and business are legit?

I can see the relevance of Basel Action Network's "Pledge of True 
Stewardship" certification program (and I will be following up with Sarah 
and or Jim on this tomorrow) but I wonder if anyone else has thoughts about 
this.

The target audience for this session is NOT local governments (issuing RFPs 
for recycling contracts) but rather businesses that want to recycle their 
by-product as well as charities or community groups that want to help the 
community by providing a recycling service for some specific product.

Thoughts?

Helen.