GreenYes Digest V96 #64

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Fri, 22 Jan 1999 16:10:57 -0500


GreenYes Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 Volume 96 : Issue 64

Today's Topics:
Canberra Zero Waste Report -Will Send
Corporate Reform

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Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 23:24:05 PST
From: jennie.alvernaz@sfsierra.sierraclub.org
Subject: Canberra Zero Waste Report -Will Send

Greeyes-ers,

If you would like to read the text of the Canberra report, A Waste
Management Strategy for Canberra - NO WASTE BY 2010, I can email it
to you as text files (45K). Or I will be happy to mail you a hard
copy (handsomely laid out) when I get them (see below), if you send
me a self-addressed 9 x 12-inch mailer with $1.24 postage affixed.
You can also get it off the web at
http://www.austouch.gov.au/html/wastestrategy/index.htm

--Bill Sheehan
268 Janice Drive, Athens GA 30606
bill.sheehan@sierraclub.org

Bill,
I am responding on behalf of Ian Woolcock, Manager ACT Waste.

Strategy document attached as requested. I have packed a box of around
40 copies of the Strategy and included some of our current range of
educational material.

There are a number of sustainable resource management groups I am
aware of which would be interested in GREENYES.

In addition to my position with ACT Waste as projects officer, looking
at worm farming, glass reuse etc. etc., I am also Secretary of the
South East Region Recycling Group (SERRG) which is a resource recovery
& recycling network of 16 local governments which surround the ACT.

I am also Secretary of the Australian Centre for Environmentally
Sustainable Systems (ACESS) which is in the process of establishing a
green business centre in the ACT providing an opportunity for
sustainable industries to display their wares to both national and
international markets.

There are numerous other groups which are attached to these through
cross-membership. I will make as many aware of GREENYES as possible.

I will subscribe and keep in touch via GREENYES and pass on your
details to others through newsletters, meetings etc.

Please let me know if you require more detail or information.

Happy New Year!

Regards,
Gerard Gillespie
gerry_gillespie@dpa.act.gov.au

[original message]
Dear Ian,

I have received a copy of your booklet, No Waste By 2010, from my
colleague Dan Knapp. It is a fine document and will be useful in the
Grassroots Recycling Network's efforts to promote zero waste in the
United States. Two things would be helpful in distributing it over
here:

1. Can you provide a plain text copy via email? I see it is on the
web, but pages 10 through 21 are formatted with the actions
interspersed within the text. We have a listserve for discussion of
recycling policies, called the greenyes (see below). Do you know of
similar chat groups in Australia?

2. Could you send a stack of hard copies? I could disseminate
whatever number you can spare.

Sincerely,
Bill S.

Bill Sheehan, Ph.D.
Chair, Grassroots Recycling Network
268 Janice Drive, Athens, GA 30606
work: 770-995-9606; fax 770-995-6603
bill.sheehan@sierraclub.org

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Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 13:48:40 -0500
From: STEVESUESS@aol.com
Subject: Corporate Reform

Dear Bill,
Here in the "West" we've created a "capitalistic" system that uses
"private business" to produce the goods we use/need. These businesses are
given the primary job of making money by performing some function people are
willing to pay for. Currently our set of economic and political rules make
it, by and large, unprofitable for these businesses to be environmental, and
thus it is logical for thee businesses to protest such proposed laws.
But things are not any better in the "East" where there was more
government control over the economic and manufacturing sectors. Now that the
Solviet Union is open we can see the total disregard their government had for
environmental concerns. China seems bent to doing the same now that their
economy is in rapid modernization mode.
In my day to day life I hear virtually everyone around me describe
themselves as "environmentalists" and yet when their environmentalism
actually costs them something or become even the slightest inconvienience it
amazes me how many take the easier less environmental path.
I suspect that the will to "do right" just isn't there - yet! I suspect
that people simply do not understand the issues. The "anti's" believe
everything is hunky dory and insist on making sure we do not even research
the field - the head in the sand approach. The "tree huggers" are yelling
the sky is falling so much it is hard for almost anyone to pay attention
anymore.
Where are the scientists, educators, journalists who we can trust who
are helping us undertand and make good, solid, educated decisions???
Until then I suspect we shall all march to the beat of our own drummers
and cast suspicious eyes towards one another! But, hopefully, if enough of
us march on our own in the same general direction, well then perhaps we might
get there.
For this reason, for the time being, I give my support to both groups,
so long as they re working in the right direction.....and not going astray as
so many groups do.

I liked the Montague excerpts you posted on greenyes. thanks.
something i am struggling with is reconciling the montague/corporate
reform perspective with the hawkens/natural step perspective. the corporate
reform folks are organizing through Sustainable America (Montague, Clean
Water
Action, labor groups are sonme of the members). The Natural Step has a
great-
sounding ecological vision and seems to be developing momentum within the
corporate sector. can enough corporations be changed by the natural step
process (adoption of four lofty principles) in time to avert
social-ecological
calamity, or is the corporate form too corrupt to allow sufficient change
from
within? Some critics note that the same handfull of companies are repeatedly

touted as paragons (Interface, 3M, Ben & Jerry's), and Hawkens himself
complains
about the CEOs that said one thing to the Presidents Council on Sustainable
Development, then turned around and lobbied Congress to gut environmental
laws.

i'd like to hear some viewpoints on this.

bill sheehan

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End of GreenYes Digest V96 #64
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