GreenYes Digest V97 #261

GreenYes Mailing List and Newsgroup (greenyes@ucsd.edu)
Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:04:40 -0500


GreenYes Digest Fri, 31 Oct 97 Volume 97 : Issue 261

Today's Topics:
GreenYes Digest V97 #260
Rates Release
Recycling article in Times Picayune
Reply to SteveSuess
Sean Al Gore Your Un-Recyclables
Stop Junk Mail - Don't sign for it!

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <greenyes@UCSD.Edu>
Send subscription requests to: <greenyes-Digest-Request@UCSD.Edu>
Problems you can't solve otherwise to postmaster@ucsd.edu.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 10:05:26 -0800
From: dassmann@sirius.com (David Assmann)
Subject: GreenYes Digest V97 #260

In response to Alicia Lyttle's request about information on public
education and outreach, it is essential to do outreach to maintain, let
alone increase, participation in curbside programs. We have better than
55% participation in our curbside program every week, which we help
maintain through extensive outreach.

The primary method we use is an intensive neighborhood campaign. We've
divided the City into six sections (with about 50,000 households in each
section). We conduct an intensive three month public education campaign in
each section. We have spring (April, May and June) and fall (September,
October and November) campaigns. Since we do the campaigns on rotation, we
cover the entire City in three years (and then start the process again).

For each campaign, we call 15,000 households (using young adult phone
banking teams) and talk to them directly about recycling. We've found that
this is the most effective way to reach people and influence their
behaviour. We also put up street signs, make presentations to 25-30
neighborhood organizations, get articles and ads placed in neighborhood
papers, mail a postcard to each household, and offer an incentive to get
the neighborhoods to recycle more (for example, if recycling goes up by
10%, we'll give $10,000 to neighborhood schools for environmental
projects). Each of these neighborhood campaigns costs about $65,000.

We also have a number of other campaigns to promote the curbside program,
including an insert in every new phone book that's delivered (20% of our
population moves every year!), articles that appear in a newsletter that
goes out with the garbage bill, regular ads in the print media, television
public service announcements,a display booth that we send to street fairs
and other events, a photography exhibit, and a trilingual hotline that we
publicize extensively. We also do our outreach in up to six languages
since 42% of San Francisco's population does not speak English at home.

We've found that the more outreach we do, the more participation climbs
(last month was our best month ever).

David Assmann
Public Outreach Coordinator
San Francisco Recycling Program

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 15:30:43 -0500
From: Michele Raymond <michele@raymond.com>
Subject: Rates Release

Dear David and Greenyes:

I appreciate your posting my press release, on recycling rates around the
world, but I would appreciate leaving the tag line on ?

Thanks

Michele Raymond

Michele Raymond

Publisher

<bold>Recycling Laws International/ State Recycling Laws Update

</bold>6429 Auburn Ave. Riverdale MD 20737-1614

301/345-4237 Fax 345-4768

http://www.raymond.com/recycle

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 12:18:07 -0800 (PST)
From: Boston CWA 486 <bostoncwa@cleanwater.org>
Subject: Recycling article in Times Picayune

The simple general reality
is that the most expensive alternative is to recycle a little.
Recycling none is certainly cheaper.
If you recycle enough, at some point the total cost may become less than
recycling none.
Well before that, the environment etc will be better off, although the
$bottom line$ will not know it.
[If we ever approach the nirvana of total diversion/reduction, it will
become ever more costly per ton to have any waste at all!]
-k
=====================
Keith c/o bostoncwa@igc.org
total recycling - zero waste
W.Rox/Boston, MA USA
=====================
At 06:48 AM 10/28/97 -0600, Alicia Lyttle wrote:
>An article about Recycling in the Times Picayune of New Orleans, La on
>Monday October 27. This article states that in Jefferson Parish, they
>spend more than $1.2 million a year to recycle about 10,000 tons of
>garbage. It would cost the parish $139,000 to bury that much waste in
>its landfill. Public officials are now wondering if, despite its
>environmental benefits, if curbside recycling is worth the money.
.........
>Alicia Lyttle: alyttle@mailhost.tcs.tulane.ed>

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 12:03:28 -0500 (EST)
From: CRRA@aol.com
Subject: Reply to SteveSuess

To: Chuck Irvine (and Recycle@envirolink.org subscribers)

Sending un-recyclables to Al Gore to promote Zero Waste is not only Steve
Suess' pet project. The CA Resource Recovery Association has 650 members.
At our annual conference this year on Zero Waste, we attracted over 1,000
people. At that conference, the members unanimously agreed with the
principles of Zero Waste, Ending Corporate Welfare for Wasting and Jobs from
Discards as the priorities we should ALL be espousing for the New Millennium.

Zero Waste may be a new phrase, but it has deep roots in America's
conservation ethics and industry practices. Many businesses today already
are achieving 80-90% waste diversion and many have adopted Zero Waste goals.

I encourage you to talk with businesses such as Hewlett-Packard, Zerox
Corporation, Patagonia and many others about their new directions. Come to
our next Conference in San Diego, 5/3-6/98 if you want to hear about
pragmatic examples of Zero Waste in action. See our website for more
information on that at www.crra.com.

It is appropriate for the Vice President to embrace this concept and be a
conduit for communicating to the media and the American public the need for
more reuse, recycling and composting initiatives in the future, and to set
our goals higher, to Zero Waste.

Gary Liss
CRRA Executive Director
916-652-4450

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 13:05:20 -0500 (EST)
From: STEVESUESS@aol.com
Subject: Sean Al Gore Your Un-Recyclables

Send Vice President Al Gore
Your Un-Recyclables

Dear Recycling Activists:

For our America Recycles Day Event we are sending Vice President Al Gore our
Un-recyclables - those things your recycling centers or curb side collections
won't take. Mr. Gore is the honorary chair of America Recycles Day which
will be held on November 15, 1997. Americans everywhere are hearing about
America Recycles Day and how 41 states are sponsoring this event. Also, we
are hearing about the corporate sponsors of this event - many who are not
known to be recycling advocates. In this weeks Recycling Times we hear that
over 3,000 events will happen on this day, and the events will climax with a
speech by Al Gore on November 15th.

As more Americans recycle than vote, we know that Americans want to do right
and that we could do more. We know that there are too many materials that
still end up landfilled. Moreover, we know that there are too many items
being made and wasted in the first place. For example the recycling rate for
plastics is less than 10% and is DECREASING! We know that new lower cost
"wide spec" #1 and #2 plastics are severely cutting the demand and prices
paid for those two - the most commonly recycles - plastics.

We invite you to join us in letting Al Gore know how we feel, and in asking
him to help further source reduction and recycling even more. To do this:

Please mail to Al Gore some of the things you can't recycle!

(Do not send him anything toxic, sharp, gooey, smelly, slimly, or otherwise
disgusting or unhealthy. The ideal kind of things to send are clean plastic
packages that you can't recycle locally. Please mail these items off before
November 10,1997 so that he gets them by America Recycles Day. You do NOT
need to put many kinds of un-recyclables in a carton. For example a vinyl
(#3) shampoo bottle needs to be rinsed clean, and then you can simply put the
postage along with an address label on the bottle itself.)

Please let Al Gore know what you want!

(We believe that we should approach Al Gore as our friend. We applaud him
for promoting recycling, and we send him our un-recyclable discards as a
physical manifestation of our desire for him to do more to promote recycling
- and in particular the recycling of items such as these. We ask him to
bring our un-recyclables to his talk on America Recycles Day and to ask
corporate America to take back these items and recycle them. We ask Al Gore
to help by asking Americans and businesses everywhere to actively work
towards not just recycling, but the very elimination of ALL waste, towards a
goal of creating a zero waste society.)

Ask someone else that you know to do the same!

Here is the address and a sample letter. Feel free to use any, all, or no
parts of this letter, just please send in something you have that you can't
recycle, and also please don't forget to spread the word about our "Take it
Back" campaign.

Mr. Albert Gore
Vice President
Honorary Chair
America Recycles Day
Old Executive Office Bldg.
Washington DC 20500

Dear Mr. Gore,

I applaud your efforts in support of recycling. In particular, I appreciate
your support of America Recycles Day and of governmental purchases of items
made from recycled materials.
But I am frustrated by how much stuff comes with all the things I purchase,
and by how little of it is recyclable. I know that more Americans recycle
than vote, and yet it still surprises me how difficult it is to recycle so
many of those very things that claim to be recyclable - Those items which
have the chasing arrow symbol or the phrase "recyclable" on them. Add to
that all the stuff that doesn't claim to be recyclable, and well you can see
- we are simply throwing away our resources - we are turning the very wealth
we have into trash!
I am sending you sample(s) of some items I am stuck throwing in the trash in
the hopes that you will bring these with you on America Recycles Day and I
hope that you will speak up and ask corporate America to take back these
things, or even better to not make so much waste in the first place.
I believe that we Americans hate waste, that we would like to see it
eliminated, that our goal is Zero Waste. I know that you have concerns for
our environment and how much we waste - I sincerely hope that you too will
come forth and express your desire to eliminate all waste on America Recycles
Day.

Sincerely,

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 31 Oct 1997 13:36:55 +0900
From: oldxeye@crisscross.com (Hop)
Subject: Stop Junk Mail - Don't sign for it!

I think both Keith, and Paul Tapley, made worthwhile suggestions regarding
junk mail. I am well practiced at both these techniques and can report that
they work, to some extent. I would add to Paul's suggestion of sending it
back in the postage paid return envelope the additional words "Thanks for
subsidising the mail system" - it might at least make them think.

However, if you really want to drastically reduce your junk mail, and save
yourself a lot of time by not having to deal with it, the solution is quite
simple:

DON'T SIGN YOUR NAME & ADDRESS TO ANYTHING LIKELY TO GENERATE IT IN THE
FIRST PLACE.

That's what REALLY works!
Hop.

>But my experience is that the way to suppress junk mail effectively is not
>to expect help from any generalized "don't send" lists, but to take
>agressive personal responsibility.
> The key thing about junk mail is that it cascades in a pyramid. If you
>let it go, it avalanches. Nip it in the bud!
> Look at each piece of mail that you receive, consider who sent it, why,
>and whether you want it (and more of the same). You will be much more
>effective in this if you code your address for each person you give it to.
[snip]
> It really is possible to keep junk mail down to a low level, with constant
>vigilance.
[snip]
>Recycle electrons -- Save a Tree!
>=====================
>Keith c/o bostoncwa@igc.org
>total recycling - zero waste
>W.Rox/Boston, MA USA
>=====================
>
>From: Paul Tapley <Paul.Tapley@sonoma.edu>
>
>Here's one more idea for the "junk mail" problem. This method does not address
>the problems, it just makes me feel better, sending a small message. When I
>get unwanted solicitations in the mail, the first thing I do is look for the
>postage paid return envelope (PPRE). I then put all the materials they sent to
>me into their PPRE and then send it all back to them with the message: "Please
>recycle this, send no more, and take my address off your mailing list. Thank
>you." I haven't noticed any great reduction in the mailings, but it seems
>appropriate to have the sender of unwanted mail be made responsable for it's
>disposal, and pay the postage as a small penality for the inconvience of us
>having to deal with it.

------------------------------

End of GreenYes Digest V97 #261
******************************