Spotlight: Producer TakeBack Recycling

This recent article in the Technology and Science blog, “A Long Term Recycling Plan For Your Products“, highlights the limitations of traditional recycling and the long-term solutions Producer TakeBack programs can offer. From the post:

“Recycling is a great reclamation for our planet and for the environment. But when it comes to our waste problems in America and the world, will recycling alone will bring about a reasonable resolution? The blunt answer is “No”. There are an abundance of reasons for why our current system of consumer recycling will not be enough. Producers and manufacturers have an obligation to their customers and the world to absolutely ensure their products are being recycled by doing things such as partnering and working in concert with waste management institutions. This is the only way real change will take effect to the degree that our planet’s environmental waste crisis demands it. Corporations must take the ultimate responsibility for going green by planning for recycling solutions for all their products before distribution and consumption.”

Read more here.

Fish on Prozac? It’s Time to Take Your Old Meds In

On Saturday Sept. 25 there are events around the country for National Drug TakeBack Day. We don’t want these chemicals flushed down the toilet to pollute our water supplies and the frogs and other animals, or put in our landfills. So this Saturday there are events around Texas to drop off those items. Unfortunately, the big drug companies are still resisting taking responsibility for the end of life of their products. In the short-term there is this one-day event and also a smattering of community pharmacies that are willing to take back unused medicines. Check out the pharmaceuticals link on the left side of this website to get details.

Bag Monster Visits Austin

Andy Keller, the head of the reusable bag company ChicoBag™ company invented Bag Monsters®. Andy had been using a huge ball of 500 plastic bags to show people at farmer’s market how many plastic bags an average American uses yearly – and one day he decided to wear it. Thus was the spawning of the first Bag Monster® (costume that is). This summer the Bag Monster is doing a national tour.

When the Bag Monster arrived in Austin on August 26, he couldn’t have come to town at a better time. The Austin City Council is awaiting the results of a study by our Solid Waste Services Department on the costs to Austin taxpayers of plastic bag waste – those that go to landfills and those that clog storm drains, litter parks or find other places to pollute.

In 2007, the City Council backed a voluntary effort by retailers and others that was supposed to reduce the amount of plastic bags in the waste stream by 50%. The voluntary effort resulted in the distribution of 900,000 reusable bags. However, less than 26% of 3.4 million pounds of plastic bags given out by the five participating retailers were recycled over the 18-month period of the voluntary program.

Thousands of Austin residents have written letters to the Austin City Council to urge them to pass a ban on plastic bags. (Local governments are not authorized by the State of Texas to put a tax on bags.) Local activists are urging retailers to provide incentives such as refunds for people who use reusable bags. One local chain Natural Grocers offers consumers free used cardboard boxes if they don’t have reusable bags.

The Bag Monster is looking for a friendly, pro-plastic bag place to call home. Austinites do not want to put out a welcome mat and instead are looking to the City Council to be the second city in Texas (after Brownsville) to send carry-out plastic bags packing.

Cities, Countries Throughout the World Ban Plastic Bags

Brownsville was the first city in Texas to ban plastic bags, and now Austin is considering following suit. But we’re hardly alone! From a recent CNN report:

“Mexico City’s thousands of stores went green Wednesday, as amended ordinances on solid waste now outlaw businesses from giving out thin plastic bags that are not biodegradable. Bans and other restrictions on plastic bags are in place in several countries. China has adopted a strict limit, reducing litter and eliminating the use of 40 billion bags, the World Watch Institute said, citing government estimates. In Tanzania, selling the bags carries a maximum six-month jail sentence and a fine of 1.5 million shilling ($1,137). Mumbai, India, outlawed the bags in 2000 and cities in Australia, Italy, South Africa and Taiwan have imposed bans or surcharges. Ireland reported cutting use of the bags by 90 percent after imposing a fee on each one.”

So there’s a growing consensus: plastic bags need to go. California is considering a statewide ban, and it wouldn’t be California without a great video.

Plastic, Disposable UT Tower?

Even one of Austin’s best and brightest institutions is capable of a very bad idea:

More from Austin Business Journal:

“A group of University of Texas alum and environmental activists aren’t happy about plans to market H2Orange, purified water in plastic bottles shaped like UT’s iconic tower. The group is gathering July 23 at UT’s West Campus Mall on Guadalupe Street to protest the plan, saying it undermines Austin’s Zero Waste goal and the campus’ sustainability policy. Instead of using disposable containers, the group is hoping the venture will market ‘a refillable bottle with a UT logo’ as a potential alternative to raising scholarship funds, the group said.”

There are so many ecological and economic problems with bottled water, one hardly knows where to start. Plastic pollution is a serious threat to our ecosystem and although the bottles may be recyclable, there is no guarantee they won’t end up in landfills, incinerators and waterways. In fact, the “great Pacific garbage patch” is larger than Texas and growing every day. And in case you haven’t forgotten about the BP spill: 10% of domestic oil production is used to make plastic products. A great primer is the Story of Bottled Water — check it out!

Beware Sham “E-Cyclers”

This former farmer in China is picking chips off circuit boards by bathing them in acid. Photo: Basel Action Network

Several recent reports have put the spotlight on an issue TCE Fund has been working on since 2002: real, responsible recycling for electronic waste. Unfortunately, the majority of obsolete electronics said to be recycled in America is actually exported and dumped in developing nations across the globe! Discovery News has more:

“Recycling your electronic waste is a noble idea, but here’s the dirty little secret: even if you drop off your old electronics for recycling, it may never get recycled. As OSNews’ Howard Fosdick describes, some people fall victim to a scam called ‘fake recycling,’ and just describing it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Fake recyclers are organizations that approach well-meaning community groups like the Boy Scouts or the Make-a-Wish Foundation to help run a local ‘Recycling Day.’ The idea is that people from the community will bring in their old electronics to the legitimate organization’s Recycling Day event. The fake recycler will then haul that e-waste away, and export it to another country with lax environmental regulations.

The crazy thing is that none of this is illegal, but it’s definitely destroying the environment.”

We couldn’t agree more. If an American company claims to be recycling our old electronics, they shouldn’t be allowed to simply ship the toxic waste to poor, developing nations for a quick buck — they should actually be recycling it. Even people who don’t typically consider themselves environmental advocates should agree we need truth in advertising.

For a fool-proof list of certified, responsible electronics recyclers near you, visit the e-Stewards website.

Local, state officials look to curtail plastic bags

Here’s a great TV story from KVUE News Austin:

“Plastic bags are bad for the environment. Most are produced using oil, and, by some estimates, 90 percent end up dumped in a landfill or clogging up streams. But those free bags can also cost you money, even if you don’t use them. There are more and more proposals being drawn up at the local and state level to eliminate or place a tax on the bags.”

If you’re in Austin, this isn’t a new subject. In 2007 the Austin City Council asked its staff to evaluate options to reduce the use of plastic bags. Then in 2008 the Council passed a resolution and set the goal of reducing the flow of plastic bags into the waste stream by 50% by June 2009. At the request of retailers, the resolution relied mostly on a voluntary program. This was passed as an alternative to a plastic bag ban that was proposed by supporters of the Ban the Bags campaign. However, the voluntary program fell short of the 50% reduction goal, and retailers only recycled about 26% of the amount of plastic they purchased in 2008.

This year, the City of Brownsville became the first in Texas to pass an ordinance banning plastic bags. Wal-Mart and HEB stores in the Brownsville area supported the ban. Austin-based Whole Foods announced a complete ban on plastic bags in their stores. Last year, Natural Grocers, a small business with a branch in Austin, publicly announced that it ceased purchasing plastic bags for the sake of the environment and has saved around 13 million bags.

Texas Campaign for the Environment is helping Austinites urge City Council to take action and pass a ban on plastic bag this year. Involving the retailers to have input on the details is appropriate, but the time for voluntary efforts is over. But you should still recycle your plastic bags at grocery stores, and better yet, simply take reusable bags on your shopping trips. Here are more press reports on a potential plastic bag ban:

Group: Efforts to reduce plastic bag use failed
Environmentalists want a ban on the use of plastic bags
Austin should nix plastic bags, group says

Spotlight: pharmacuetical waste

Don’t flush or trash your old pills, unless you want them to end up in our drinking water! In 2008, an AP investigation found that “A vast array of pharmaceuticals – including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones – have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.” Not good!

We’d like to see Producer TakeBack programs in place that would make it easy for anyone to return their unused pharmaceuticals. And we’re not the only ones. From the Product Policy Institute:

“The National Association of Counties (NACo), the country’s largest local government organization, has unanimously adopted a policy supporting producer responsibility for unwanted medicines. The expense of taking back unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs would be handled by the pharmaceutical industry, without relying on state or local government funding.”

This won’t be a simple solution; drug enforcement laws can be quite complicated when it comes to recovering old pills. But the principal that the manufacturers should be responsible for their waste should still apply.

In some states and cities, manufacturers are teaming up with local pharmacies and law enforcement agencies to provide free, convenient recycling locations — usually at the nearest drugstore. We’re already seeing the beginnings of such a system in Texas. Here’s a current map of local participating drugstores. Recycle away!

“Going Green” spotlights Texas Campaign for the Environment

Texas Campaign for the Environment was featured in this week’s segment of Going Green with Yolanda Green. Watch and share, please!

This is a terrific portrayal of TCE, the work we do and just a few of our allies. Major kudos to Yolanda and the Going Green team for creating such a comprehensive report. Also, thanks are due to Green Bank for sponsoring several Going Green segments and Citizens’ Environmental Coalition for suggesting TCE for this week’s show. And thanks to TCE volunteer Chris Patterson who helped collect the pictures and video!

Getting to Zero Waste…or Darn Close

Graphic: GrassRoots Recycling Network

Many believe that trash is an inevitable byproduct of modernity, as if humankind is forever doomed to bury or burn our waste because, with apologies to 90s pop sensation The Rembrandts, “That’s just the way it is, baby.” Fortunately, the way it is doesn’t necessarily equal the way it must be. In fact, you can participate in a number of exciting initiatives that currently work to bring us to Zero Waste…or darn close.

As a concept, Zero Waste embraces a “cradle-to-cradle” system, in which the products we make, sell and purchase are used to make new products rather than dumped in a landfill or burned in an incinerator. Pragmatically, Zero Waste is a set of concrete practices that mirrors nature in an effort to conserve resources, reduce trash, increase reuse and recycling, promote durability and preserve wealth. Sounds ambitious, right? Well, yes and no, especially in light of the ramifications associated with maintaining the status quo.

First, consider our current waste(ful) scheme: we extract natural resources from the earth, manufacture those resources into consumer products, ship those products all over the world in planes and boats and trucks, then buy and use them until they become obsolete and finally toss them in the garbage. This is a linear, “cradle-to-grave” approach: extract-manufacture-distribute-consume-dispose…repeat. Our present waste management regime promotes the continuous extraction of limited resources to perpetuate an unsustainable cycle. For a terrific, illustrative video on unsustainable production, see the Story of Stuff.

Second, consider the economic value of the resources that we constantly bury in the ground after short-term use: the precious metals in our trashed electronics, the easily remanufactured textiles in our clothes and furniture, the wood in our millions of tons of discarded paper—all of these have value as potential raw materials—simply disappearing into a monetary sinkhole. Garbage dump becomes money pit. Every ton of reusable materials that end up in a landfill leads to ever-more costly (both economically and environmentally) mining, logging and drilling.

Now consider a sustainable alternative, one in which products and the value (again, economically and environmentally) residing in the resources consumed to create them are not buried or burned, but instead become an entirely new, higher quality product. This is the core of Zero Waste: every material used in the production cycle functions as feedstock, a “nutrient” used to make new products. In their seminal work, Cradle to Cradle, William McDonough and Michael Braungart describe “technical nutrients” that can be utilized over and over in manufacturing processes without suffering any deterioration in quality and “biological nutrients,” organic matter which breaks down in the environment to feed living organisms and perpetuate life. Nature functions this way: the byproducts of an oak tree or a tree frog re-enter the environment to help new trees or frogs or something entirely different grow until their byproducts re-enter the system. A cycle of living, a closed loop. Zero Waste takes this bio- and ecological reality and applies it to contemporary culture.

Several fundamental principles guide Zero Waste practices; in turn, the integration of several such practices constitute a Zero Waste Plan. Companies or government entities that implement a Zero Waste Plan commit to: 1) “cradle-to-cradle” design and materials use; 2) “producer takeback” policies, in which manufacturers assume responsibility for the end-of-life care of their products; and 3) “triple bottom-line” accounting, which considers not only the economic impacts of an action but also the environmental and ethical costs of a particular manufacturing process or product design.

Right now, many individuals, cities, companies and governments are beginning to formulate and implement comprehensive Zero Waste Plans into their local and regional solid waste management systems. In fact, the entire nation of New Zealand implemented precisely this type of plan in July of this year. Diverse companies ranging from Fetzer Wine to Subaru to Xerox already divert more than 90% of their waste.

On a local level, several communities already ramped up efforts reduce waste. Austin became the first city in Texas to adopt a formal Zero Waste Plan. Dallas has expanded its single-stream recycling program citywide, resulting in huge gains in recovered material. Houston has launched an yard/tree waste mulching program that is expected to save he city $2 million each year. On the corporate front, one Toyota and GM joint manufacturing plant convinced its parts suppliers to switch from cardboard to reusable shipping containers—this step alone saves the companies an estimated $20 million a year.

At home, you can do your part to move toward Zero (or darn close). Consume less wasteful packaging by purchasing products that contain post-consumer recycled content. Compost your food and yard waste in the back yard. When remodeling, use sustainably harvested materials such as bamboo flooring and recycled glass counter-tops or tile. If you’re in the market for a new home, you can get to Zero Waste by installing several amenities such as solar or tankless water heaters, rainwater-fed washing machines, LED lighting and metal roofing. In Dallas, one eco-friendly couple is blogging their trials and tribulations with green design as they build a new home—the Labron House—from the ground up. Check out their progress at http://blog.greenlabron.com.

Jeffrey Jacoby, Staff Director, Texas Campaign for the Environment
Article originally published in September 2009 issue of House & Home Magazine