United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Solid Waste and
Emergency Response
(5305W)
EPA530-N-95-005
Summer/Fall 1995
REUSABLE
NEWS
Final
Comprehensive
Procurement
Guideline Issued
Government purchasing
has turned a deeper
shade of green. From
floor tiles to engine coolant,
federal agencies are in the mar-
ket for recycled content prod-
ucts in a bigger way than ever
before. The impetus behind
this intensified buy-recycled
focus was the May 1, 1995,
publication of the final
Comprehensive Guideline for
Procurement of Products Con-
taining Recovered Materials
(CPG) and its companion piece,
the Recovered Materials Advi-
sory Notice (RMAN).
The CPG designates 19 recy-
cled-content products in six
product categories for which
(Continued on page 11)
IN THIS ISSUE
Paper-Less Campaign • Bulk Mail
Recycling • Cooperative Recycling in
Brazil • Hollywood Studio Spotlights
Waste Reduction • Unit Pricing and
Full Cost Accounting Forum •
WasteWiSe Update • Resources
• Design Today To Recycle Tomorrow
CBOT Recyclables
Exchange To Link
Nation's Traders
A small community wants to
find a reliable buyer for the
plastic milk jugs it collects
at curbside each week. A few
miles away, a manufacturer strug-
gles to find a steady supply of
postconsumer high density poly-
ethylene (HDPE) to use as raw
materials in the detergent bottles
it produces. If only the two could
meet!
Soon they will. With support
from EPA, the Chicago Board of
Trade (CBOT) Recycling Exchange
partners are working to link buy-
ers and sellers of recyclables
nationwide on an electronic bul-
letin board. Participants (such as
municipalities, haulers, materials
recovery facilities, recycling cen-
ters, reclaimers, brokers, and man-
ufacturers) will be able to sign on
to a CBOT host computer via a
personal computer and modem.
Here, they will be able to post and
peruse information on recy-
clables' specifications, price
terms, quantities, and location of
materials. As a result, buyers and
sellers will be able to make con-
tact, and recyclables will be
traded more readily, much like
any other commodity.
Initially, the CBOT program will
facilitate the exchange of recy-
clable glass, two types of plastic,
and several grades of recyclable
paper. Once the system is under
way, the partnership expects to
add other recyclable materials to
the exchange. The cost of using the
system will be kept low to encour-
age broad participation.
(Continued on page 2)
Recycled/Recyclable
/Printed with Vegetable Based Inks on 100% Recycled Paper (50% Postconsumer).
-------
Recyclables Exchange Links Nation's
Traders
What Is CBOT?
(Continued from page 1)
To help meet the
needs of those
who require
precise mate-
rial specifi-
cations, the
system will
be able to ver-
ify the quality
of recyclables traded
using standardized inspection pro-
cedures. With extensive input from
suppliers, processors, and end-
users, the partnership has been
developing a list of product attrib-
utes, such as color and materials
content, that participants can use
to describe recovered materials
traded on the exchange. These
product attributes will reflect exist-
ing quality standards and industry
practices.
The system also will provide
reliable information about the
prices paid for recyclable com-
modities, which will help end-users
and suppliers make investment
and program decisions for the
future. The system will generate
real price information based on
actual transactions to assure buyers
and sellers that they are paying and
receiving fair market value for
quality materials.
Additionally, the system will pro-
vide a neutral process for settling dis-
putes between buyers and sellers.
When two parties agree to register a
trade using the CBOT system, they
agree to participate in dispute resolu-
tion and product quality evaluation
processes if necessary. If the parties
are unable to resolve a dispute, they
can use the CBOT arbitration process,
as well as a third-party, independent
laboratory to conduct inspection,
sampling, and testing of the materials.
CBOT Chairman Patrick H. Arbor
explains that "the CBOT brings a
long history of helping markets work
better for buyers, sellers, and inter-
mediaries. Recovered materials are a
natural extension of our
role as a central mar-
ketplace, and this
program further
demonstrates
how free mar-
kets can provide
answers to soci-
ety's problems."
The trading system
launch date is now scheduled
for October 17, 1995.
For more information, call Linda
Shotwell of NRC at 703 683-9025,
or Jeff Campbell of CBOT at 312
341-7264.1
The CBOT Partnership has organized a series of orientation and training
workshops specifically designed for future users of the CBOT recyclables
exchange. Following is a list of cities where the workshops will be held:
Kansas City, MO
Seattle, WA
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Dallas, TX
Atlanta, GA
Orlando, FL
For more information.
703 683-9025.
9/10/95
9/19/95
9/20/95
9/21/95
9/29/95
10/05/95
Philadelphia, PA
Boston, MA
Cincinnati, OH
Chicago, IL
Syracuse, NY
Keystone, CO
10/06/95 Akron, OH
call Chris Benjamin at the National Recycling
10/10/95
10/11/95
10/12/95
10/16/95
10/18/95
10/22/95
11/03/95
Coalition—
Chicago Board of Trade
A group of farmers and agricul-
tural merchants who needed
a better organized and more
reliable mechanism for buying and
selling grain established CBOT in
1848. CBOT established standard
grades and measures for agricultural
commodities such as wheat, corn,
and soybeans, as well as rules defin-
ing equitable trade.
CBOT's work evolved into futures
contracts, which are standardized
agreements to buy or sell some-
thing in the future at a price agreed
upon now. (Futures markets allow
buyers and sellers to keep prices at
a fixed rate to avoid price increases
in the future.) In 1975, CBOT
expanded from trading agricultural
contracts to financial contracts, such
as U.S. Treasury bond futures, and is
now the largest cash exchange in
the world. CBOT also developed a
project with EPA to trade industrial
air emissions credits, as part of the
Clean Air Act.®
The CBOT Recycling
Exchange partners include:
• The Chicago Board of
Trade
• The National Recycling
Coalition's Recycling
Advisory Council
• Washington State's Clean
Washington Center
• The New York State Office
of Recycling Market
Development
• The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
-------
Paper-Less Campaign
Builds on Success
Last year, EPA employees nation-
wide used almost 25 million
fewer sheets of paper than they
did in 1993. That's about 130 tons of
paper—enough to fill 200 midsize
pickup trucks. And by reducing
paper use, EPA saved nearly
$100,000 over the past year in paper
purchasing costs alone.
These achievements are among
the many successes of EPA's Paper-
Less Office Campaign—an Agency-
wide effort launched in April of 1994
to make paper waste reduction a top
priority.
Over the past year, agency
employees have analyzed their work
practices and program activities to
identify opportunities to cut back on
paper use. They adopted various
"paper wise" strategies, such as
copying on two sides of a sheet, rout-
ing and posting memos, purging
mailing lists, and using electronic
rather than paper formats whenever
possible.
The following are just a few of
many Paper-Less Office Campaign
success stories:
• Agencywide copier paper use
has dropped by 20 percent.
• Two EPA regions set photocopy
machines to automatically default
to double-sided copying.
• The Office of Water pared down
its newsletter mailing list from
900 to 300 names by eliminating
duplicates and old names.
• A division of the Office of Con-
gressional Affairs started trans-
mitting draft copies of testimony
electronically and filing final
copies on diskette rather than in
paper files.
• The Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response electroni-
cally distributed reports on the
1994 flooding in the Southeast,
saving at least 2,400 hard copies in
Georgia alone.
• EPA Region 5 (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH,
WI) saved 54,000 sheets
of paper by distributing all-
employee memos electronically
rather than on paper.
Building on this success, in 1995
the Paper-Less Office Campaign is
focusing on increasing employee use
of electronic communication tech-
niques such as electronic mail and
computer networks. Employees will
receive computer training and more
documents will be distributed
through the Internet. Campaign man-
agers are also administering the cam-
paign in a paper-less way as much as
possible. They developed a senior
management briefing and presented
it onscreen rather than on paper. The
campaign's success has prompted
other federal agencies, such as NASA
and the Government Printing Office,
to inquire about borrowing campaign
themes and materials.
For more information about the
Paper-Less Office Campaign, call Mia
Zmud of EPA at 703 308-7263.1
^B Q
HI Thanks to you, all sorts
I
•^ of everyday products are
being made from the paper,
plastic, metal and glass that
you've been recycling.
But to keep recycling
I working to help protect the
K environment, you need to
™ buy those products.
BUY RECYCLED.
AND SAVE; «
I
So look for products made S
P
from recycled materials, and &
i
buy them. It would mean the
H
world to all of us. •
For a free brochure, write i
Buy Recycled, Environmental
Defense Fund, 257 Park Ave.
South, New York, NY 10010,
or call 1-800-CALL-EDF
ENVIRONMENTAL I
DEFENSE!
FUND I
-------
Bulk Mail
Recycling
Gets Stamp
of Approval
You're under a time crunch
to get a mailing out. Many
of your contacts haven't
updated their addresses for sev-
eral years, but you decide to send
out the letters anyway. A few
weeks later, you discover many of
your letters never reached their
destination because of wrong
addresses. Where did those let-
ters end up, you wonder?
With help from EPA and oth-
ers, the United States Postal
Service recently launched a
major initiative to reduce and
recycle the more than five bil-
lion pieces of undeliverable
bulk business mail (UBBM) that
result from improper addressing
or other mixups each year.
Under the program, the nation's
35,000 local post offices will
soon begin segregating their
UBBM for recycling. Post
offices also will continue work-
ing with local mailers to pre-
vent waste by maximizing the
deliverability of second- and
third-class mail.
Although the program is not
mandated, all local facilities are
expected to participate. In a
recent survey, the Postal Service
found that several undeliverable
mail recycling programs already
operating in cities across the
nation are avoiding $1.4 million
in annual disposal costs. The
Postal Service estimates that it
could save more than $16 mil-
lion annually in avoided dis-
posal costs if all of its
undeliverable mail was recycled.
To advance the Postal Service's
efforts to recycle undeliverable
mail and increase the effective-
ness of bulk business mail deliv-
ery, a National Task Force has
been established to:
• Facilitate the onsite collection
of undeliverable mail for recy-
cling at local post offices
nationwide.
• Create a national database to
support the development of
local and area-wide undeliver-
able mail recycling programs.
• Work with local and national
direct mailers to help them bet-
ter maintain their mailing lists.
The Postal Service plans to
What Is Undeliverable Bulk
Business Mail?
U
ndeliverable bulk business mail is second- and third-class busi-
ness mail that can't be delivered or does not reach its destination.
It includes magazines, pamphlets, flyers, catalogues, and business
letters and postcards. Mail can be
"undeliverable" for a variety of rea-
sons, including improper and vacant
addresses, excess pieces, and time-
liness of dated information on sales
or for coupons. The nation's post
offices generate more than 600,000
tons of undeliverable bulk mail
every year. H
expand its customer education
program concerning proper
address requirements and
encourage all third-class mail-
ers to use the National Change
of Address program—a com-
puterized mailing list software
that automatically updates old
addresses. In addition, the
Postal Service plans to solicit
ideas from Postmasters across
the country on how to help
mailers increase the deliver-
ability of direct marketing mail.
• Initiate back-haul programs
whereby Postal Service trucks
drop off regular mail at local
post offices and then load
empty trucks with undeliver-
able mail for transport back to
regional offices for recycling.
Back-hauling is cost-effective
because the collection and
transportation infrastructure is
already in place, and additional
labor is not normally required.
The Task Force is also explor-
ing the option of allowing postal
patrons to bring discarded mail
from their homes to local post
offices for recycling. Task Force
members include EPA, the Amer-
ican Forest and Paper Associa-
tion, the Direct Marketing
Association, and several major
paper companies and brokers.
Many paper mills (approxi-
mately 33 percent nationwide)
now accept discarded mail as
recycled feedstock. Several mills
have pledged to do business
directly with the Postal Service
because undeliverable mail is
usually cleaner than paper recov-
ered by municipal solid waste
recycling programs. For purposes
of its Comprehensive Procure-
ment Guidelines (see article on
page 1), EPA considers UBBM as
"postconsumer recovered paper."
For more information about the
Postal Service's National Task
Force on undeliverable bulk busi-
ness mail recycling, contact
Charles Vidich of the United States
Postal Service at 203 285-7254.1
-------
Cooperative Recyclin
in Brazil A
Recycling is alive and well in
the densely populated
cities of Brazil. The bulk of
the country's municipal recycling
collection, however, does not take
place at curbside. A majority of
materials are collected by individ-
uals who cull paper, cans, and
other materials from dumps or go
house to house retrieving scrap
materials.
These individuals—known as
catadores in Portuguese—collect
more recyclables than all munici-
pal curbside collection programs
in Brazil combined. The official
curbside recycling program in the
city of Curitiba, for example, col-
lects 800 tons of recyclables a
month at a cost of $180 per ton,
while local catadores collect over
3,000 tons a month at no direct
cost to the city.
Compromisso Empresarial Para
Reciclagem (CEMPRE), the Brazil-
ian Recycling Commitment, is a
nonprofit group helping to orga-
nize catadores into recycling
business cooperatives. In doing
so, CEMPRE hopes to better the
catadores' position in Brazilian
society, increase the national recy-
cling rate, and create economies
of scale.
According to CEMPRE, the
catadores' free market approach is
more economical than Brazil's
government-run curbside collec-
tion programs, and cooperatives
enable members to sell to larger
dealers at higher prices. The few
catadore cooperatives that already
exist have demonstrated great
success. In Sao Paulo, for exam-
ple, members of a cooperative
formed in 1989 now receive
40 percent more money than they
would have earned on their own.
Brazilian industry repre- S^
sentatives interested in
recycling founded CEMPRE in
1992. The organization was \
built on the notion that compa-
nies can play a leading role in
Brazilian environmental protec-
tion. Members include multi
national consumer products
companies, recyclers, and waste
haulers—all committed to meet-
ing Brazil's unique solid waste
challenges as a large, urban,
developing nation.
To inform the catadores about
the benefits and logistics of orga-
nizing into recycling coopera-
tives, CEMPRE is distributing
educational kits throughout
Brazil. The kits include mostly
visual media, such as videos, flip
charts, and comic book-style
leaflets. Developing nations,
including South Africa and India,
have expressed an interest in
adapting the educational kits for
use in their respective countries
to create similar cooperatives.
Local religious groups are work-
ing with CEMPRE to distribute the
educational kits and conduct
courses using the materials. The
first course was completed last
year in the city of Belo Horizonte.
The city's Cleaning Authority, in
conjunction with the Catholic
Archdiocese, ran the course over a
one-month period. Catadores
attended 10 classes, learning
about topics from health care for
workers to the basics of running a
cooperative. In addi-
tion, the class visited
Belo Horizonte's com-
posting plant and sani-
tary landfill.
Christopher Wells, execu-
tive director of CEMPRE,
said the success of the course
demonstrates that catadores "can
both expand their awareness of
their role in society and boost their
incomes. It's a win-win situation."
CEMPRE has completed many
other projects to promote recy-
cling in Brazil, including devel-
oping a series of recycling
handbooks. CEMPRE also has
sponsored a database of solid
waste documents, worked to stan-
dardize packaging symbols, and
conducted studies of municipal
recycling programs. The organiza-
tion is continuing its efforts by
developing a decision-makers'
guide to solid waste management
in Brazil, which will be distrib-
uted to every mayor in the coun-
try. CEMPRE bases some of its
publications on documents pro-
duced by EPA and others in the
United States.
For more information, contact
Christopher Wells of CEMPRE by
fax at 011-55-21-553-5760.1
-------
Ufffltt; HOLLYWOOD ST
r WASTE REDUCT
Waste reduction is taking
center stage these days at a
number of major Holly-
wood motion picture and television
studios. Sony Pictures Entertain-
ment in Culver City, California, is
one studio that has devised some
innovative ways to reduce and reuse
the scripts, sets, and scrap film that
remain after the floodlights dim and
the cameras cut.
The company, which produces
and distributes motion pictures,
TV shows, and home videos, first
began to integrate waste reduction
principles into its day-to-day
activities in 1991. These efforts
led to a comprehensive, company-
wide program that includes a vari-
ety of waste prevention, recycling,
and buy-recycled initiatives.
The success of this program is
due in part to a Green Team made
up of more than 80 employee vol-
unteers from a variety of company
departments. The team helps edu-
cate employees and improve par-
ticipation in waste reduction
activities, and also provides a
mechanism for communicating
the accomplishments being made.
"We've made great progress
over the past three years in our
environmental program by get-
ting our employees involved, and
making it easy and rewarding for
everyone to participate," says
Rosanne Feild, Director of Corpo-
rate Safety and Loss Control.
Sony Pictures has taken great
strides toward preventing and recy-
Film Recycling Gets Reel
Sony Pictures Releasing, the domestic theatrical distri-
bution arm of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture
Companies, is the first such company to launch a film
trailer reuse/recycling program. "Trailers" are the film pre-
views shown before the main feature at a movie theater.\
Instead of discarding Sony Pictures'
used trailers after only a few months of
use, movie theaters can now ship
them to National Screen Service—a
company that distributes motion
picture trailers. National Screen
accepts Sony Pictures' used
trailers from first-run theater
chains and redistributes
them to discount and "sec-
ond-run" theaters for addi-
tional screenings. National Screen Service has set up an
"Authorized Return Service" with UPS to provide labels for
the shipments.
Trailers too worn to redistribute are sent by the distribu-
tors to the Film Processing Corporation (FPC), a film recy-
cling company owned by the Eastman Kodak Company. FPC
also recycles full-length movie prints discarded from the
26,000 movie theaters currently operating nationwide. FPC
recycles a total of about 10 million pounds (more than
300,000 miles) of used film each year.
Most waste film is either transformed and reused as dif-
ferent film products, recycled into new plastic film base, or
used as fuel in specially designed furnaces.
For more information on FPC, contact Larry
FPC at 213 468-1574.1
-------
UDIO SPOTLIGHTS
ION
cling waste from "take one." Since
1991, the company has reduced its
administrative waste (mostly
paper) by more than 25 percent,
thereby avoiding a total of $18,000
in hauling fees and $11,000 in land-
filling fees, and earning more than
$6,000 in revenues for recyclable
materials each year.
Like most studios, Sony Pictures
has a big appetite for paper. In 1993
alone, the studio consumed at least
103 million sheets, or 516 tons, of
white office paper. Scripts for
movies and TV shows are the
largest portion of Sony Pictures'
administrative waste. For a single
TV program, for example, dozens of
copies of a revised script are usu-
ally distributed every day. Before
the waste reduction program,
copies of many scripts were thrown
away without ever being read. After
rethinking its script distribution
system, the studio updated its
script distribution list to avoid
duplicates and unnecessary copies.
In addition, the company began
double-sided copying of some
scripts—a rare practice in Holly-
wood because actors and actresses
find it easier to work from one-
sided scripts.
Donations are another key strat-
egy in Sony Pictures' waste preven-
tion effort. Realizing that its diverse
waste stream could be valuable to
others, the company decided to dis-
tribute its waste materials for reuse.
For starters, a large load of wood,
plexiglass, paneling, fiberglass,
plastic sheeting, and moldings—
common byproducts of movie and
television set construction—was
donated to a local high school
wood shop in 1993. The studio also
donates props, scenery, paint,
wardrobes, office furniture, and
supplies to Materials for the Arts, a
city program that links donations
with nonprofit arts and cultural
organizations.
In 1992, Sony Pictures gave
more than 100,000 linear feet of
boards from the set of the movie
Hero to a boys and girls club in
northern California, which used
SONY PICTURES
ENVIRONMENTAL
LEADERSHIP
the wood to build a storage facility.
The company also donated eight
dressing rooms from a defunct TV
show to a nonprofit organization
that provides job training and
experience for young adults. The
organization converted the dress-
ing rooms into dorms.
Sony Pictures donates thousands
of used videotapes from its home
video operations to Ecomedia:
Project Fast Forward, a national,
nonprofit organization that pro-
vides at-home employment oppor-
tunities to the severely disabled.
Tapes that are in good con-
dition are erased and sold
to nonprofit and com-
munity-based programs
at low cost. Tapes with
any sort of defect are dis-
assembled and their plas-
tic parts are ground and
sold for recycling.
From 1991 to 1993, Sony Pic-
tures' overall recycling rate jumped
from 9 percent to 52 percent. Much
of this increase was due to TV and
movie set recycling, which
increased to 71 percent from 23
percent in a single year. Set waste,
which consists primarily of dis-
carded wood construction materi-
als, makes up 69 percent of the
nearly 4,000 tons of waste the stu-
dio generates each year. Sony Pic-
tures began working with a
company call Re-Sets (see article on
page 8) in 1992 to recycle wood
waste from sets.
Through a company-wide recy-
cling program, Sony Pictures col-
lects corrugated, aluminum, glass,
fax and laser cartridges, video cas-
settes, kitchen grease, steel cans
and film storage canisters, com-
puter equipment, and wood pallets.
The company's buy-recycled pro-
gram includes bathroom tissue and
paper towels made from recycled
office paper, as well as recycled
plastic park benches and a variety
of recycled papers.
For more information on Sony
Pictures' waste reduction efforts,
contact Rosanne Feild of Sony
Pictures Entertainment at 310
280-4510.1
Toys made from donated movie set
wood are sold by Skid Row Access of Los Angeles.
-------
Movie Set
Wood: The
Sequel
ATorrance, California, com-
pany called Re-Sets col-
lected and processed more
than 11,000 tons of wood from
used Hollywood sets last year—
enough to build approximately 500
average-size (1,800 square feet)
single-family homes.
Studios often build and tear
down several dozen sets and
stages during the filming of a sin-
gle TV show or movie, generating
hundreds of tons of used, high-
quality wood. Set wastes from a
major motion picture can practi-
cally double a studio's normal
waste flow.
Four years ago, brothers-in-law
David Issac and Jeryl Pinkert
launched Re-Sets to salvage set
and stage wood. The company
now collects set wood from most
of the major Hollywood studios
(including Sony Pictures) for a
removal fee comparable to the
disposal fee studios used to pay to
have the wood landfilled. The
wood is then sorted by size and
marketed to furniture, crate, and
pallet manufacturers at
a price much lower
than new lumber. Re-
Sets also donates wood
to organizations such as
Habitat for Humanity,
to help build low-
income housing, and
Skid Row Access, for
toy manufacturing.
There are hurdles to
reclaiming set wood,
however. While most
of the wood is no more
than a few months
old, it is often riddled
with heavy-duty staples.
Most studios use staples instead of
nails because they are quicker to
put in place. One eight-foot long 2"
x 4" board, for example, can con-
tain as many as 40 staples—all of
which must be removed with a
hand tool. Often the wood must
also be stripped of paint.
One of Re-Sets' main cus-
tomers is SpinOffs—a company
started by Jeryl Pinkert that con-
verts used wood from Hollywood
sets into limited edition furni-
ture. Displayed at SpinOffs show-
room, for example, are a dining
table from the set of the movie
Higher Learning, a coffee table
from True Lies, and a desk from
Little Rascals.
After a set is torn down, Spin-
Offs works with a specially
trained Re-Sets crew to identify
and keep track of the origin of
each piece of wood. That way,
customers can be sure they're buy-
ing a chair, bed, or table from the
set of their favorite movie. In the
showroom, the furniture is
grouped together by movie. Spin-
Offs produces about 25 pieces of
furniture from a single dismantled
movie set. In 1995, the company
expects to convert at least six tons
of Re-Sets wood into furniture.
For more information on Re-
Sets, contact David Isaac at 818
716-2335. For more information on
SpinOffs, contact Jeryl Pinkert at
818350-4410.1
DID YOU
KNOW?
According to Miss Manners, it's okay to cross out an old address
and write a new one on your stationery and business cards as a
sensible way of avoiding waste. "Etiquette tends to shy away from
extravagance," she says. 13
ABC
-------
Forum To Beam
Up Solid Waste
Information
To foster a nationwide discussion
on unit-based pricing and full
cost accounting, EPA is sponsor-
ing a satellite videoconference on
September 21, 1995. Broadcast from
Washington, DC, the forum will be
accessible through downlink sites in
10 cities, home to each of EPA's
regional offices: Boston, Massachu-
setts; New York, New York; Philadel-
phia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia;
Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas;
Kansas City, Kansas; Denver, Col-
orado; San Francisco, California; and
Seattle, Washington.
Unit-based pricing (UBP) is a sys-
tem under which residents pay for
waste management services according
to how much waste they place at the
curb. This system offers an economic
incentive to reduce trash, and it equi-
tably distributes the cost of solid
waste services—the people who gen-
erate the most pay the most.
Full cost accounting (FCA) helps
decision-makers identify, assess,
understand, and report the full costs
(i.e., past, present, and future costs) of
solid waste management. By know-
ing what a program really costs to
operate, solid waste-managers can
make more informed decisions about
their programs. Communities imple-
menting UBP can use FCA to help
determine the appropriate rate struc-
ture. FCA also can help a community
decide to privatize solid waste ser-
vices or expand a recycling program,
for example.
At the forum, UBP and FCA
experts will discuss these concepts,
explain their benefits, and examine
implementation issues. People in
attendance in each city can call in and
ask questions.
For information on the specific
location and time of the forum in each
of the above cities, call the Eastern
Research Group Hotline at 617 674-
7374.1
Roundtable
Honors Charter
Endorsers
If you're a member of a national trade association, don't be surprised if your associa-
tion begins touting the environmental and economic benefits of waste reduction.
Chances are pretty good that your association is one of 25 Charter Endorsers that
have committed to promote waste reduction through EPA's WasteWiSe program.
These Endorsers, which represent many of the country's largest manufacturers, retail-
ers, and service firms, have
agreed to promote WasteWiSe '
to their member companies and
work with them to identify
waste reduction strategies.
To recognize the leadership
of these associations, EPA held
a roundtable meeting May 16 in
Washington, DC. This first
meeting with the Charter
Endorsers served as a forum for
ideas to promote waste reduc-
tion to association members.
During the roundtable,
endorsers exchanged information on ways they are working with their members to
spur waste reduction. For example, the Direct Marketing Association, as part of its
Environmental Stewardship Challenge, encourages members to reduce waste
through mailing list management and other practices. The Polystyrene Packaging
Council has set a goal to bring 50 percent of its member companies into WasteWiSe
and to begin emphasizing waste prevention and packaging redesign to its members.
EPA is proud of the initiative the Charter Endorsers have taken to spur their part-
ners on to additional environmental progress. To express this sentiment, Jim
Matthews, Deputy Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emer-
gency Response, congratulated the
Endorsers and thanked them for
their leadership.
Overall, the Charter Endorsers
found the meeting to be an excel-
lent networking opportunity and
asked that EPA host a similar meet-
ing on an annual basis.
Jill Tanis of the Food Marketing Institute and
Chet Dalzell of the Direct Marketing Associa-
tion exchange waste reduction strategies.
For more information about the
WasteWiSe Endorser Program, call
1-800-EPA-WISE.I
-------
RESOURCES
INFORMS
Latest Reports
on Solid Waste
With EPA funding, INFORM,
Inc., a nonprofit environmental
research organization, has
developed four new reports on
municipal solid waste topics. To
order any of these reports, send
payment (prices are given below)
plus $3 postage and
handling for one
report and $1
postage and han-
dling for any addi-
tional reports to:
INFORM, Inc., 120
Wall Street, 16th
Floor, New York,
NY 10005-4001, or
call 212 361-2400.
questions for U.S. policymakers
to consider when determining if
there are any lessons to be
learned from the green dot. The
report puts in perspective the
special circumstances that led
Germany to the development of
this system. A complete copy of
the German legislation that cre-
ated the system appears in an
appendix.
To Refill or Not To
Refill
Germany, Garbage
and (he Green Doi'
t-hallcngint! (he
Throwaway Sociely
rtte K.
Germany's
Green Dot
System
INFORM has pub-
lished a comprehensive
report on the German
system for handling
packaging and product
waste called Germany,
Garbage, and the Green
Dot: Challenging the
Throwaway Society ($25).
Germany's "green dot"
system aims to reduce
waste by placing respon-
sibility for the final dispo-
sition of products and
packaging with producers and
distributors.
This report covers everything
you want to know about the Ger-
man system, including a list of
INFORM
According to another
INFORM report, Case
Reopened: Reassess-
ing Refillable Bottles
($25), many of today's
glass beer and soft
drink bottles can be
refilled 35 times, plas-
tic soft drink bottles 25
times, and plastic milk
bottles up to 100 times.
INFORM researchers
looked at refilling as
a waste reduction
method in conjunc-
tion with recycling.
When refillable bot-
tles reach a point
where they can no
longer be reused,
the report suggests
recycling them.
The report also
describes govern-
ment policies and
company initia-
tives to promote
the use of refillable bot-
tles. Two case studies are pro-
vided in the report: a company
that uses refillable beer bottles
and a company that uses refillable
soda and milk bottles.
Reusable Shipping
Containers
A growing number of compa-
nies are discovering reusable
shipping containers. That's the
subject of a new INFORM report
called Delivering the Goods:
Benefits of Reusable Shipping
Containers ($20). Nearly 26 mil-
lion tons of corrugated card-
board were thrown out in
1993—about 186 pounds for
every person in the United
States. Switching to reusable
containers offers the potential of
major reductions in the amount
of solid waste requiring dis-
posal. It also offers businesses
potential cost-savings.
The INFORM report shows
how the process of shifting to
reusable shipping containers can
work. It describes situations in
which reusable shipping con-
tainers are used today, methods
for overcoming any obstacles in
switching to these containers,
and options available to both
industry and government for
expanding their use.
.
**
10
-------
Final Comprehensive Procurement
Guideline Issued
Source
^ Reduction
in the Big
-.Apple
wfa A recent sur-
vey conducted
by INFORM indi-
cates that source reduction
could save the state of New
York up to $750 million in
annual waste disposal costs
and could reduce its solid
waste load by 3.75 million
tons.
Results of the survey, entitled
Source Reduction of Municipal
Solid Waste in New York State
($5), indicate that although a
variety of state-sponsored
source reduction programs are
currently in place, only 1 per-
cent of the state's solid waste
budget is directed toward these
initiatives.
The survey was sent to man-
agers of the state's 65 solid
waste planning units. Survey
participants were asked to out-
line their source reduction
strategies and goals, to indicate
how they measure their source
reduction progress, and to iden-
tify the most important issues
surrounding source reduction
in their districts.
In addition, respondents
cited several roadblocks to state
source reduction programs
including inadequate reporting
and measurement methods, a
lack of outside assistance and
model programs, and a need for
standard definitions of source
reduction terms. (See page 10 to
order. )B
(Continued from page 1)
government procuring agencies
need to develop procurement pro-
grams. These products include
some of the items most frequently
purchased by federal agencies,
such as office supplies, automo-
tive products, and construction
materials. The CPG also consoli-
dates the five items covered in
previous procurement guidelines,
making it the primary federal doc-
ument addressing recycled-con-
tent purchasing.
The RMAN provides more
detailed recommendations to help
government agencies actually
purchase the products designated
in the CPG. It also lists the ranges
of recovered material content
within which designated items
are commercially available. On
March 15, 1995, EPA made avail-
able for public review a second
RMAN dealing exclusively with
paper and paper products. (See
the Spring 1995 issue of Reusable
News.) After reviewing public
comments on this proposed
RMAN, EPA will issue a final
paper products RMAN. EPA will
continue to issue updates to the
CPGs and RMANs as new recy-
cled products are introduced.
Federal agencies and others have
until May 1, 1996, to review specifi-
cations for the new items designated
in the CPG. By that date, agencies
must eliminate provisions that pose a
barrier to procurement of products
containing recovered materials (e.g.,
aesthetic requirements unrelated to
product performance). As of that
date, agencies must also begin to buy
the recycled-content items desig-
nated in the CPG whenever practical.
EPA responded to over 300 com-
ments received after the CPG was
proposed in April 1994 (see the
insert, number EPA530-N-94-003b
in the Spring 1994 issue of
Reusable News). By finalizing the
CPG, EPA has met a major responsi-
bility under Executive Order 12873
and Section 6002 of the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA). The accompanying RMAN
provides current and detailed infor-
mation to make it easier for federal
agencies and others to buy many
different types of recycled prod-
ucts. Increased purchasing of recy-
cled products, in turn, encourages
manufacturers to step up their use
of materials collected in recycling
programs instead of virgin raw
materials, fl
Procurement Guideline and
RMAN Available On Line
A fact sheet, the CPG, the RMAN, and supporting analyses are
available in electronic format through EPA's Public Access Server
at gopher.epa.gov. For the CPG and RMAN, choose: Rules,
Regulations, and Legislation, then Waste Programs/EPA Waste Informa-
tion-GPO; and finally, Year/Month/Date. The fact sheet and supporting
analyses can be found under EPA Offices and Regions/Office of Solid
Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER)/Office of Solid Waste/Non-
hazardous Waste/Procurement/General. For hard copies and additional
information, call the RCRA Hotline at 800 424-9346 or TDD 800
553-7672; in the Washington, DC, area, call 703 412-9810 or TDD 703
412-3323.1
11
-------
Design Today
To Recycle
Tomorrow
It's not unusual to find engineer-
ing students in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, knee-deep in recy-
clable parts from hand mixers and
toaster ovens. Taking apart house-
hold appliances to assess their
design and ease of ^^^^^^™
recyclability is just
one exercise in a new
curriculum at Grand
Valley State Univer-
sity. The curriculum,
called Design for
Recycling: Solving
Tomorrow's Problems
Today, strives to foster
the foresight, ethics,
and engineering skills
necessary to design
more readily recyclable products.
The concept of Design for Recy-
cling entails the deliberate design
and manufacture of goods for safe
and efficient recycling at the end
of their useful lives. Hazardous
and nonrecyclable materials are
minimized or eliminated from the
production process and from the
products themselves.
Grand Valley's curriculum
teaches that a product's final rest-
ing state (whether it is disposed of
or recycled) is primarily the
responsibility of the engineers
who design it. After all, recyclers
can't recycle a product that is com-
posed of nonrecyclable materials,
that has many different materials,
or is not easily disassembled for
recycling. Grand Valley State Uni-
versity is one of a growing number
of engineering schools that inte-
grate Design for Recycling princi-
ples into their coursework.
"Just like a good glass
mug doesn't break
into shards when you
squeeze it, responsibly
designed products
should have minimal
impact on the
environment."
—Dr. Shirley Fleischmann
"Our goal is to
reach a point where
environmentally
responsible design is
an assumed element
of every product, like
structurally responsi-
ble design is now,"
said Dr. Shirley
Fleischmann, associ-
ate professor of engi-
neering at Grand
"Just like a good glass
break into shards
Valley.
mug doesn't
when you squeeze it, responsibly
designed products should have
minimal impact on the environ-
ment as well."
For more information on the
Design for Recycling curriculum,
contact Dr. Shirley Fleischmann of
the School of Engineering at
Michigan's Grand Valley State
University at 616 771-6761.1
DEUSABLE NEWS is the quarterly
A newsletter of the EPA Office of Solid
Waste's Municipal and Industrial Solid
Waste Division. Reusable News reports
on the efforts of EPA and others to safely
and effectively manage the nation's
garbage and provides useful information
about key issues and concerns in munici-
pal solid waste management.
Address comments or free subscrip-
tion requests to:
John Leigh, Editor (5305W)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, SW.
Washington, DC 20460
The mention of publications, products, or
organizations in this newsletter does not
constitute endorsement or approval for
use by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency.
&EPA
United States Environmental Protection Agency
(5305W)
Washington, DC 20460
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use
$300
------- |