Today's Topics:
Another request for info on Dirty MRFs (2 msgs)
Check printing companies use of recycled content feedstock
Info on Dirty MRFs
join list with Canadian content
NEWS: Fwd: Clinton's U.N. Address - 1
NEWS: Fwd: Clinton's U.N. Address - 2
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Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 06:45:00 -0700
From: John Carlton <jcarlton@co.hunterdon.nj.us>
Subject: Another request for info on Dirty MRFs
Several private companies are looking to site dirty MRFs/Transfer
Stations in our county (Hunterdon County, NJ). Our Solid Waste Advisory
Council is evaluating these proposals and is seeking any data on
operating dirty MRFs in terms of material recovery rates and material
quality. It would be especially helpful to have information by specific
waste type (e.g. municipal, construction/demolition, industrial).
Please post responses to the GreenYes list or send information to me
directly at jcarlton@co.hunterdon.nj.us or by fax (908) 788-1662. Thank
you for your assistance!
John Carlton
Hunterdon County Utilities Authority
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:13:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@concentric.net>
Subject: Another request for info on Dirty MRFs
>Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:10:18
>To: jcarlton@co.hunterdon.nj.us
>From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@mail.concentric.net>
>Subject: Re: Another request for info on Dirty MRFs
>
>Dear John:
>
>Steve Apotheker of Resource Recycling Magazine wrote two survey articles on
mixed waste processing. These can be found in the September, 1993 and
December, 1994 issues. I don't recall if there is a more recent article he
wrote on this subject. In addition, Governmental Advisory Associates tracks
all types of mixed waste processing facilities and has facility profiles
based on telephone surveys. They can be contacted at 203-226-3238 or
gaa@connix.com If you have any further questions please feel free to e-mail
them to me.
>
>Roger M. Guttentag
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
>At 06:45 AM 6/26/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>Several private companies are looking to site dirty MRFs/Transfer
>>Stations in our county (Hunterdon County, NJ). Our Solid Waste Advisory
>>Council is evaluating these proposals and is seeking any data on
>>operating dirty MRFs in terms of material recovery rates and material
>>quality. It would be especially helpful to have information by specific
>>waste type (e.g. municipal, construction/demolition, industrial).
>>
>>Please post responses to the GreenYes list or send information to me
>>directly at jcarlton@co.hunterdon.nj.us or by fax (908) 788-1662. Thank
>>you for your assistance!
>>
>>John Carlton
>>Hunterdon County Utilities Authority
>>
>>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 10:49:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: PMSinnott@aol.com
Subject: Check printing companies use of recycled content feedstock
Summary
I would like to start a volunteer campaign to encourage all check printing
companies to increase their use of paper made with recycled fiber. I would
like help planning and implementing the campaign. Let me know if you are
interested. I don't think it will take more then a few hours of time to let
them know it matters to us and other environmentally oriented Americans.
Background
I have had good luck with buying checks from printing companies which are not
affiliated with my bank(s). Everytime I order checks I scour the country for
the cheapest check printed on recycled paper. Six months ago I called their
industrial association for a list of companies which meet my specs. I was
disappointed to hear only a few used or promoted their use of recycled
content paper.
This is my first pass. I am planning to write a letter to the association in
early August.
:) Portia
Portia Sinnott
Waste Management and Micro Computer Consulting
7777 Healdsburg Avenue, Suite 10
Sebastopol, CA 95472-3335
(707) 824-9931
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 08:05:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@concentric.net>
Subject: Info on Dirty MRFs
>Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 22:13:22
>To: "dk" <Koplow@indecon.com>
>From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@mail.concentric.net>
>Subject: Re: Info on Dirty MRFs
>
>Dear Doug:
>
>I view the term "dirty MRF" to be generally an uninformative term because
it does not tell me anything except that the facility is recovering
recyclables from some type of mixed wastestream. The recovery rates
achieved by these types of facilities depends alot on the quality and
composition of the wasteflow they process. In general, it appears that the
industry experience with recovering recyclables from MSW from all sources -
residential, commercial and institutional - is that it is very difficult to
push recovery rates above 15% (of delivered processible tonnages) even with
a lot of technology and labor. To my knowledge, no company that operates
this type of facility will contractually guarantee a recovery rate in excess
of 15% from this type of mixed wastestream (I would be very interested in
any cases where this is not true). The real money is in processing clean,
dry fiber rich CI2 (commercial, industrial, institutional) wastestreams.
This kind of processing is being accelerated by the recent development of
reasonably priced, effective, labor efficient screening systems for
separating corrugated containers from the rest of the CI2 wastestream that
is being processed. The understream from the screens can then be sorted to
recover high grade fibers, aluminun cans and other marketable materials (the
recoverable composition depends on its origins). The minimum recovery rate
would be determined by the corrugated content. It may be this type of
facility that is being used by your new hauler. Is there any way you can
find out where your materials are going?
>
>Roger M. Guttentag
>
>At 02:10 PM 6/25/97, you wrote:
>>
>> Our building just switched trash vendors to one using a dirty MRF.
>> As a result, they are eliminating all existing recycling programs,
>> saying that the material gets sorted automatically.
>>
>> Does anybody have information on how well dirty MRFs actually
>> perform? Do they have low recovery rates and high contamination,
>> especially of paper wastes, or are they viable alternatives to
>> materials-specific recycling?
>>
>> Thanks for the help.
>>
>> Doug Koplow
>> Industrial Economics
>> Cambridge, MA
>> koplow@indecon.com
>>
>>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 15:21:40 -0400
From: "Barbara Schaefer" <B.Schaefer@facilities.utoronto.ca>
Subject: join list with Canadian content
ENVIRO-COORDINATORS-L is an interactive electronic forum that has
been created by the Ontario College and University Association of
Waste Managers (OCUAWM) to serve the needs of Canadian college and
university waste managers and recycling coordinators. It is meant to
encourage a distinctly Canadian dialogue on solid waste management
issues that are common to Canadian colleges and universities. Through
this list, it is hoped that members will benefit from shared
experiences, information, and advice.
The list welcomes questions, answers, expressions of concern and
discussion about any area or aspect of waste management. This
includes, but is not limited to:
* Policies and procedures
* New technologies
* Promotion and education
* Special events
Though the list will deal primarily with waste management issues,
other topics of environmental significance that may have impact on
Canadian and international colleges and universities may also be
introduced for discussion.
HOW TO JOIN THE LIST
The ENVIRO-COORDINATORS-L is a closed list, in the interest of
keeping out unsolicited SPAM messages. It is lightly moderated by the
Recycling Coordinator at the University of Toronto. All subscription
requests will be screened to determine the affiliation of the
subscriber. If you would like to join this list, please send an e-
mail message to:
ENVIRO-COORDINATORS-L-REQUEST@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA
Please include information about your college or university
affiliation and your position at the institution. If you are not with
a college or university, please explain why you would like to join
this list.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:03:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: DavidOrr@aol.com
Subject: NEWS: Fwd: Clinton's U.N. Address - 1
Subject: Clinton's U.N. Address - 1
Sent: 6/26/97 5:38 PM
c The Associated Press
Remarks made by President Clinton to the United Nations Special
Session on Environment and Development in New York on Thursday.
Thank you very much. Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General,
ladies and gentlemen, five years ago in Rio, the nations of the
world joined together around a simple but revolutionary
proposition: that today's progress must not come at tomorrow's
expense.
In our era, the environment has moved to the top of the
international agenda because how well a nation honors it will have
an impact, for good or ill, not only on the people of that nation,
but all across the globe. Preserving the resources we share is
crucial not only for the quality of our individual environments and
health, but also to maintain stability and peace within nations and
among them.
As the father of conservation in our nation, John Muir, said,
``When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.''
In the years since Rio there has been real progress in some
areas. Nations have banned the dumping of radioactive wastes in the
ocean and reduced marine pollution from sources on land. We're
working to protect the precious coral reefs, to conserve threatened
fish, to stop the advance of deserts. At the Cairo Conference on
Population and Development, we reaffirmed the crucial importance of
cooperative family planning efforts to long-term sustainable
development.
Here in America, we have worked to clean up a record number of
our toxic dumps, and we intend to clean 500 more over the next four
years. We've passed new laws to better protect our water, created
new national parks and monuments, and worked to harmonize our
efforts for environmental protection, economic growth and social
improvement, aided by a distinguished Council on Sustainable
Development.
Yesterday I announced the most far-reaching efforts to improve
air quality in our nation in 20 years, cutting smog levels
dramatically and, for the first time ever, setting standards to
lower the levels of the fine particles in the atmosphere that form
soot.
In America, the incidence of childhood asthma has been
increasing rapidly. It is now the single biggest reason our
children are hospitalized. These measures will help to change that,
to improve health of people of all ages, and to prevent as many as
15,000 premature deaths a year.
Still, we here have much more to do, especially in reducing
America's contribution to global climate change.
The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the
global climate.
Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at
their highest levels in more than 200,000 years and climbing
sharply. If the trend does not change, scientists expect the seas
to rise two feet or more over the next century.
In America, that means 9,000 square miles of Florida, Louisiana
and other coastal areas will be flooded; in Asia, 17 percent of
Bangladesh, land on which 6 million people now live, will be lost;
island chains such as the Maldives will disappear from the map
unless we reverse the predictions.
Climate changes will disrupt agriculture, cause severe droughts
and floods and the spread of infectious diseases, which will be a
big enough problem for us under the best of circumstances in the
21st century. There could be 50 million or more cases of malaria a
year. We can expect more deaths from heat stress. Just two years
ago here in the United States in the city of Chicago, we saw the
tragedy of more than 400 of our citizens dying during a severe heat
wave.
No nation can escape this danger. None can evade its
responsibility to confront it, and we must all do our part,
industrial nations that emit the largest quantities of greenhouse
gases today, and developing nations whose greenhouse gas emissions
are growing rapidly. I applaud the European Union for its strong
focus on this issue and the World Bank for setting environmental
standards for projects it will finance in the developing world.
Here in the United States, we must do better. With 4 percent of
the world's population, we already produce more than 20 percent of
its greenhouse gases.
MORE
AP-NY-06-26-97 2031EDT
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:02:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: DavidOrr@aol.com
Subject: NEWS: Fwd: Clinton's U.N. Address - 2
Subject: Clinton's U.N. Address - 2
Sent: 6/26/97 5:38 PM
c The Associated Press
Frankly, our record since Rio is not sufficient. We have been
blessed with high rates of growth and millions of new jobs over the
last few years, but that has led to an increase in greenhouse-gas
emissions in spite of the adoption of new conservation practices.
So we must do better, and we will.
The air-quality action I took on yesterday is a positive first
step, but many more must follow. In order to reduce greenhouse
gases and grow the economy, we must invest more in the technologies
of the future. I am directing my Cabinet to work to develop them.
Government, universities, business and labor must work together.
All these efforts must be sustained over years, indeed, over
decades. As Vice President Gore said Monday, ``Sustainable
development requires sustained commitment.'' With that commitment,
we can succeed.
We must create new technologies and develop new strategies, like
emissions trading, that will both curtail pollution and support
continued economic growth. We owe that in the developed world to
ourselves, and equally to those in the developing nations. Many of
the technologies that will help us to meet the new air quality
standards in America, can also help address climate change. This is
a challenge we must undertake immediately, and one in which I
personally plan to play a critical role.
In the United States, in order to do our part, we have to first
convince the American people and the Congress that the climate
change problem is real and imminent. I will convene a White House
Conference on Climate Change later this year to lay the scientific
facts before our people to understand that we must act, and to lay
the economic facts there so that they will understand the benefits
and the costs. With the best ideas and strategies, and new
technologies and increased productivity and energy efficiency, we
can turn the challenge to our advantage.
We will work with our people, and we will bring to the Kyoto
conference a strong American commitment to realistic and binding
limits that will significantly reduce our emissions of greenhouse
gases.
I want to mention three other initiatives briefly that we are
taking to deal with climate change and to advance sustainable
development here and beyond our borders.
First, to help developing nations reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, the United States will provide a billion dollars in
assistance over the next five years to support energy efficiency,
develop alternative energy sources, and improve resource management
to promote growth that does not have an adverse effect on the
climate.
Second, we will do more to encourage private investment to meet
environmental standards. The Overseas Private Investment
Corporation will now require that its projects adhere to new and
strengthened environmental guidelines, just as our Export-Import
Bank already does, and as I hope our allies and friends soon will.
Common guidelines for responsible investment clearly would lead to
more sustainable growth in developing nations.
Third, we must increase our use of new technologies even as we
move to develop more new technologies. Already we are working with
our auto industry to produce cars by early in the next century that
are three times as fuel efficient as today's vehicles.
Now we will work with businesses and communities to use the
sun's energy to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by installing
solar panels on one million more roofs around our nation by 2010.
Capturing the sun's warmth can help us to turn down the Earth's
temperature.
Distinguished leaders, in all our cultures we have been taught
from time immemorial that, as scripture says, ``One generation
passes away and another comes, but the Earth abides forever.'' We
must strengthen our stewardship of the environment to make that
true, and to ensure that when this generation passes, the young man
who just spoke before me, and all of those of his generation, will
inherit a rich and abundant Earth.
Thank you very much.
END
AP-NY-06-26-97 2032EDT
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End of GreenYes Digest V97 #152
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