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Be the Change that we Seek...If the People will Lead, the Leaders must Follow...NYC's ZW 2005 in Review NYC's Zero Waste 2005 in Review with BIG UP!'s (recognition) for some of the highlights over the year (feel free to forward) - First the Action Item - I'd like to encourage all of you to please contact your local Councilmember's office (contact info. available at: http://www.nyccouncil.info/constituent/contact_member.cfm) by handwritten letter/phone and/or email to demand that they support Zero Waste goals, planning and funding in the yet to be approved Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP). Our new City Council Speaker (to be elected at the January 4th stated mtg of the Council) will be able to champion our cause or threaten our City's future based upon what they are willing to demand in the SWMP. For more information, please skim through or read the NYC Zero Waste Campaign's model plan Reaching for Zero at: www.consumersunion.org/other/zero-waste/ where ideas may be copied and pasted into your documents or a full pdf version may be downloaded for your needs. Around this time of year/the end of this calender year (depending upon which calender you use - in this case the NYC political calender year), I'd like to send a few praises to some of the organizations that have been truly Reaching for Zero in 2005 and recognize that we can Reach even further in 2006 if we continue to struggle for Justice and Peace in our work (apologies to any highlights that I may fail to mention - I'm going to keep this NYC-centric). BIG UP! to the NYC Waste Prevention Coalition www.whywastenyc.org and the McSWAB's Waste Prevention Committee for spearheading the successful passage of bills by the City Council on Dec. 21st including: Int. 544-A: Reduces the purchase of products containing hazardous substances. This includes products such as PVC that lead to the formation of dioxins, mercury-added lamps, toxic flame retardants, mercury, and other toxic materials in electronics. Int. 534-A: Creates an office of environmental purchasing to develop and implement environmental purchasing standards to reduce the purchase of persistent bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals, improve indoor air quality, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, etc. Int. 536-A: Purchases more energy efficient products such as computers and lamps. Int. 545-A: Increases the purchase of products with recycled content. Int. 552-A: Reduces the purchase of toxic cleaning and other custodial products to protect workers. Thanks also to Center for Health, Environment and Justice who joined the effort late to particularly address PVC (a/k/a Plastic #3 the greatest scourge of the plastics sector). http://www.besafenet.com/pvc/nycrelease.htm BIG UP! to the Green Workers Cooperative www.greenworker.coop and Sustainable South Bronx www.ssbx.org for securing federal funding to plan for a Resource Recovery Park in the the Boogie Down Bronx's Hunts Point neighborhood where waste transfer stations have been the practice and resource recovery will be the future - the vision and outright demand for Environmental Justice by these organizations has been a powerful force for change that has rocked the way politicians in the Bronx speak to environmental issues and leaders are being recognized for the "genius" of promoting sustainable alternatives to the degradation practices that have been a way of life for too long. BIG UP! to the Bigger Better Bottle Bill Coalition and NYPIRG who staffed it, for the momentous push for statewide legislation to win a landslide victory vote this past June, 98-40 in the NYS Assembly in support of the the Bigger Better Bottle Bill (A2517B-DiNapoli/S1290B-LaValle) - demands for a vote in the NYS Senate must be increasingly pressure the State Senators including Senator Golden here in NYC, the only majority party member in the NYC delegation not currently co-sponsoring the legislation in the State Senate. http://www.nypirg.org/enviro/bottlebill/ Thanks also the to the Container Recycling Institute for their ongoing support in this effort. http://www.container-recycling.org/mediafold/newsrelease/bottlebills/2005-6-21-NYbbbb.htm BIG UP! to the NYC Department of Sanitiation's Bereau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling whose Comprehensive Waste Characterization Study of '04-'05 was larger than any other ever produced and promises to provide a plethora of statistical data for advocates to utilize in the struggle for Zero Waste. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dsny/downloads/pdf/pubnrpts/swmp-4oct/REPORT%20PDFS/1%20PWCS%20Final%20Report%20Results%20Highlights.pdf BIG UP! to the NYC Zero Waste Campaign http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZeroWasteCampaignNYC/ and the GrassRoots Recycling Network www.grrn.org for hosting the most kick-ass ZW conference http://www.grrn.org/conference2005/index.html - the 2nd National Zero Waste Action Conference ever held in entire country this past May at Pace University's Downtown Campus. BIG UP! to the Lower Eastside Ecology Center www.lesecologycenter.org for teaming up with NYC to collect more e-waste than any other single organization in NYC by holding events in all 5 boroughs including a Staten Island event that involved an estimated 1% of all households in the borough - an unprecedented achievement in the annals of non-profit recovery in a major city. BIG UP! to the Natural Resource Defense Council for spearheading groundbreaking legislation for Extended Producer Responsibility of E-Waste in NYC known as Intro. 643 http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/weeklyView.cfm?articlenumber=1804 (and hosting NYC Zero Waste Campaign meetings from their inception through August '05 - thanks to Environmental Defense for picking up the hosting duties where NRDC left off because of rehab construction at their offices) and thanks also to the Product Policy Institute www.productpolicy.org for being a tireless supporter of this concept. BIG UP! to the Community Environmental Center and their Build It Green! NYC www.bignyc.org building materials reuse store which opened in February '05 and has since partnered with Habitat for Humanity's Restores http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx BIG UP! to the Sierra Club - NYC Group - whose participation in the NYC Zero Waste Campaign since its inception led to its holistic adoption of Zero Waste as a 20-year goal in NYC and publication of the NYC Zero Waste Campaign's Mayoral Candidates Survey http://geography.hunter.cuny.edu/~mclarke/FinalZeroWasteQuestionnaireResponsesInsert-eversion.pdf on Zero Waste was published in their fall edition of the City Sierran mailed to over 15,000 members in August '05 and recently elected Shannon H. Stone, their Zero Waste Project Co-Chair to their Executive Committee based upon the entirety of her work for a sustainable society including Zero Waste; Atlantic Chapter - whose Waste Committee Chair, Chris Burger (an upstate Republican) has demonstrated through personal commitment to Zero Waste that excepting failed marketplace options, Zero Waste is achievable (he and his wife generate 1.5 pounds of unrecovered resources annually compared to the NYS per capita average approaching 5 pounds/day); and National - whose EJ Principles include "We support an end to pollution -The long-range policy goal priorities for environmental protection must be: (1) to end the production of polluting substances and waste through elimination, replacement, redesign, reduction, and reuse (zero waste)" and recognized my organizing work on behalf of the NYC Zero Waste Campaign with their 2005 Environmental Alliances Award for building a diverse campaign in support of a healthier planet. BIG UP! to Freecycle New York City freecyclenewyorkcity-subscribe@no.address to which all the locals should utilize and publicize the link is for subscribing (I advise choosing digest format), this listsevre services over 19.5 thousand people in NYC (making this one of the biggest if not the biggest free barter system in any City) who freely give and take supporting Reuse and keeping items away from Burn & Bury disposal. Similar listserves are readily found with a simple google search and can be started up with little cost besides time and effort on the part of their moderators. Because of their internal rules their listserve cannot be copied on this message, but their moderators will be copied. BIG UP! to Recycle This! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KeepNYCRecycling/ for their listserve and posts like the reprint below that highlight the opportunities for Waste Prevention and Reuse, (special thanks to the NYC Waste Prevention Coalition and Reuse Alliance for spearheading these ideas in NYC over a number of years now) the top of the resource recovery hierarchy a/k/a the Zero Waste framing of our waste issues - all of these ideas should be adapted into our everyday lives as we plan meetings/gatherings and events - it's time we put theory into practice and demand a transition toward a Zero Waste society - Be the Change that we Seek... Yours Truly, Timothy J.W. Logan Lead Organizer, NYC Zero Waste Campaign P.S. All of you inspire me (or hopefully are inspired by me if you aren't yet converted away from burn and bury disposal technologies) - may your passions in the Zero Waste arena never wain and your works forever inspire the rest of the planet. "Today everything is so copacetic Tomorrow you sad and blue Tell me what does it profit people To speak of and not do" -excerpted from New Time & Age by - Ziggy and Stephen Marley ****************************************************************** Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 23:13:35 -0500 From: mitchelcohen@no.address Subject: Kleenex Boycott From: Aaron <yahoo@no.address> Tissues used in place of "snot rags" account, I'm sure, for an infinitesimal portion of all the wasteful destruction of trees that goes on in the world. While the problem of environmental destruction is mainly a political problem, There are so many things people could do, aside even from making a revolution, to reduce their own contribution to the destruction of trees for paper, etc., that would mean a lot more than not using tissues. A couple of suggestions: 1) Don't buy newspapers containing lots of advertising, or pick up unused copies of free ones, unless there's something you really need to read in that paper that's not available online. 2) When you're finished with a newspaper, a section of a paper, or some other reading matter, whether you got it new or second-hand, leave it where someone else can pick it up. (OTOH, free copies of reactionary papers like Epoch Times should go straight to the recycling bin. Some considerations outweigh saving paper!) 3) Carry re-useable chopsticks with you when you might be eating out at a place that uses the disposable kind. Lots of rainforest is destroyed to make the latter. I don't believe, however, that individual choice is the primary way to stop environmental destruction. Unless you include in "individual choice" the decision as to which capitalist predator to assassinate. >:-} - Aaron *********************** Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 06:16:20 -0500 From: Cathryn Swan <cathrynbe@no.address> Subject: Re: Kleenex Boycott We want to put the Kleenex information and perhaps other 'tips' on the Recycle This! web site also when we 'revamp' it. Thanks for sending. Cathryn |
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