April 2002 Newsletter
The Future of Glass in Oregon
NEPSI: Stakeholders Agree on Financing Approach For Management
of Used Electronics
Fun & Educational Programs by ESOR
Wanted: Quart Jars
Exporting Harm
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The Future of Glass in Oregon
- Compiled from several sources by Tanya Schaefer
In late February, haulers, recyclers, processors, government agencies, trade associations and citizens, came together for the Glass Recycling Education and Strategy Forum. More than 90 people attended the discussion which focused on troubled glass markets, contamination problems, and alternatives to traditional bottle-to-bottle recycling.
Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling magazine and secretary of the Oregon Recycling Markets Development Corporation, believes the glass market is here to stay, thanks in large part to glass holding its own as the preferred container for beer, wine and liquor, and its versatility in shaping and labeling. Major difficulties in glass collection, processing and marketing include severe dislocation in the green glass markets, rising volume in commingled cullet contamination, only 10 optical sorting plants in the U.S., and distance to markets.
According to Tom Mabie, of the Glass Packaging Institute, glass-to-glass recycling is the highest and best use, but it is not the only market. California is a major consumer of cullet due to its requirement that fiberglass contain 30% recycled content. Metro's Steve Engel reported that glass is also being used in sandblasting, landscaping, oil spill cleanup and aggregate. End-users also are making decorative and architectural glass. When used as an aggregate, glass competes with several other types of cheap fill. Mabie stressed that while glass manufacturers want to use all recycled cullet, it must be clean to be recyclable. Contamination significantly limits how much cullet can be used to make new glass containers.
Oregon glass statistics: Mary Sue Gilliland, acting DEQ Solid Waste Manager, reviewed the data. In 2000, 87,800 tons of glass were recovered: 84,000 tons went to bottle applications (although not all of the glass sent to Strategic Materials is made into containers) and 3,400 tons went to road base or fill. About 25% of recovered glass was collected curbside, over 65% was from bottle deposit returns, and the remaining 10% was recovered from multi-family residences, commercial generators and depots or disposal sites.
DEQ has processed several requests for waivers from wastesheds proposing to drop glass from curbside collection. The applicable statute allows alternative collection programs for principle recyclables providing that the wasteshed's overall recovery rate does not decrease. In smaller wastesheds, halting curbside glass collection often boosts recovery rates when it is coupled with the addition of new programs, such as yard debris and scrap paper collection. However, in larger wastesheds where multiple materials are picked up curbside, dropping glass from the curb could result in a 1% drop in a wasteshed's recovery rate if none of the residential glass was recycled. Gilliland also expressed concern that DEQ does not have enough staff to evaluate a flood of alternative collection program applications.
At the curb or no? Lynne Storz of Washington County reported that her program is ready to take glass off the curb to improve efficiencies. Her numbers show that recycling rates have increased 12.5% since commingling and costs have decreased. Washington County expects further efficiencies with automated collection and removing glass from the curb. President of Recycling Advocates, Rob Guttridge, countered that if we tell people they can't put glass with other recyclables because it's too difficult to handle in a commingled system, they will be put off and won't believe what we're saying. People know basic things about recycling, and one of them is that glass is recyclable. If you tell them they can't put it out at the curb, they will ignore you because the opportunity to place glass at the curb will still exist. Or, they may become frustrated and take everything to the depot. Guttridge believes it is important that we not give contradictory messages - we can find ways to collect bottles that don't compromise recycling. Note: Bruce Walker, City of Portland, told this author that his program is not considering halting curbside collection of glass.
What's next? Some Oregon communities have taken glass off the curb, and we await their results. Haulers are experimenting with different types of collection, such as collecting glass in color-coded bags. Different constituents argued for "best practices" for processors. Others suggested that problems with glass collection could be alleviated by a Bottle Bill expansion. The only certainty is that this issue will continue to be on the forefront of recycling discussions in Oregon, and RA will continue to keep its readers informed.
NEPSI: Stakeholders Agree on Financing Approach For Management of Used Electronics
Representatives from electronics manufacturers, government agencies, environmental groups, and others have achieved a major milestone in the development of a joint nationwide plan for managing used electronics. In their fourth meeting on March 11-12 in Washington, D.C., all stakeholders in the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative agreed to work toward the establishment of a financing system that will include the costs of managing used electronic products in the overall purchase price of new electronic products.
The agreement commits the stakeholders to work on the development of a "front-end financed system" during the remaining work of the NEPSI Dialogue and to develop an agreed action plan for establishing this system that includes federal legislation needed to facilitate the implementation of the system. The action plan will also include steps that can be taken during the period before the "front-end" system is in place nationally that will improve existing systems for managing used electronics and prepare for the new financing system.
The NEPSI participants identified several challenging issues remaining to be resolved, including the timeframe for implementing the front-end financed system, how to make the system convenient for consumers, whether it can provide incentives for product design, and how the costs and responsibilities for collection, reuse, and recycling will be shared among producers, retailers, consumers, and governments. The group also discussed the serious issue of the export of used electronics from the U.S. for dangerous backyard recycling by workers in Asia that was highlighted by a recent report and documentary video entitled "Exporting Harm." (See page 3 for a summary of this report.) They agreed that the NEPSI Dialogue will make recommendations on how to address this problem in the development of the new nationwide system for used electronics management.
The NEPSI group has agreed to meet three more times over the next six months. Participants hope that this dialogue will result in a voluntary national agreement by September. The next formal meeting is scheduled for June 24-25 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
For more information visit http://www.nepsi.org.
Fun & Educational Programs by ESOR
Want to learn about eco-friendly living, gardening with native plants, or where to hike in Oregon? Let the Earth Share of Oregon (ESOR) share this information and more with you and your co-workers through their Brown Bag Lunch program.
ESOR offers an array of 30-minute and 1-hour on-site presentations on a diversity of topics such as how to save a river, throw a waste-free party, and experience the wonders of Oregon's high desert. Recycling Advocates provides speakers on topics such as alternatives to household hazardous waste, product stewardship, the three "R's," event recycling and more. Experts from ESOR's 72 non-profit member organizations will come to your workplace with audiovisual presentations and workshops to share a wealth of knowledge on conservation issues over your lunch hour.
For the list of Brown Bag Lunch topics, visit ESOR's website at http://www.earthshare-oregon.org. To learn more about ESOR's educational programs, please call 503-223-9015 or e-mail info@earthshare-oregon.org.
Recycling-minded beekeeper is in need of quart (and pint) mayonnaise jars, but not just any mayo jar. I can reuse quart jars that have metal lids because I can buy new lids to fit them. But please, no plastic-lidded mayo jars. I am willing to pick up jars from your house in the Portland area.
Please call or e-mail me if you have any questions (or jars to pick up!). Glen Andresen, 503-282-8844, glen@pacifier.com.
As people around the country wake up to the electronic waste problem, they learn that very often, "recycling" means sending shipping containers of e-stuff to Asia. Many American recyclers explain that there is no other economically viable means of recycling these materials. By some reports as much as 80% of our electronic items make their way to China at their end-of-life. From this realization comes the question, "What's happening to the e-stuff in Asia?" Unfortunately there haven't been many answers to that question. It seems that some is reused, and some is broken down into parts and base materials for reuse of parts and recycling of the materials. But there also have been reports of open air burning, processing in unsafe conditions and generally uncontrolled practices that are damaging to the environment and hazardous to people.
Last month the Basel Action Network (BAN) and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) released a new report containing a first-hand account of what happens to the e-waste in one Chinese city. And it's not good. The 51-page document provides a summary of the e-waste picture, the hazards presented by this material, and the role of export. It also describes the situation that was found in Guiyu, China. In December 2001 a team from BAN, with support from Greenpeace China in Hong Kong, traveled to Guiyu to learn what was really going on. The findings are detailed in the report along with many pictures, and also in a video. The second half of the report looks at legal implications of e-waste export, why local U.S. governments are in the middle of this issue, and what we should do about our e-waste problem.
The research team spent three days in Guiyu visiting sites, interviewing people, taking pictures and testing soil and water samples. While the authors state up front that the report is only based on one site in China, and they don't know whether this is typical of all e-waste destinations in Asia or just an isolated case, what they found confirmed the worst fears about how this waste is being handled. The report describes how Guiyu has been transformed from a poor, rural rice-growing community in 1995 to a booming e-waste processing center with its water supply left too polluted to drink, bad air, and children playing amongst the hazardous waste. These findings have turned the export issue into one that can't be avoided any more.
The report ends with recommendations for action, including: 1) Ban hazardous waste exports, 2) Stop using prison labor for electronics recycling, 3) Don't allow new toxins to be used in these products, 4) Make the producer responsible, 5) Require producers to "Take it Back!," 6) Design for longevity, upgradability, repair and reuse, and 7) Design for recycling.
If you are wondering what you can do about this
situation, here are some of their ideas:
- Write your Congressperson and demand that the U.S. ratify the Basel Convention
and the Basel Ban Amendment;
- Sign onto the Electronics Take It Back Platform at http://www.svtc.org;
- Buy only "necessary" computer/electronic products;
- Contact your computer manufacturer and ask to have a take back mechanism.
The report is available at http://www.svtc.org or http://www.ban.org. To learn more about the Basel Convention, visit the BAN Web site.