New Mexico Recycling Coalition

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April 30, 2008

Recycling Class, May13-15 - Register Today!

The recycling certification class is scheduled for May 13-15 in Grants. Folks who need to re-certify can take this class to satisfy their state recertification requirements, no matter what class they originally certified in.

Go to www.recyclenewmexico.com/cert_classes.htm

NM Recycling Conference: Expected Highlights

Want to know what's going on in all facets of the recycling world both in New Mexico and the U.S., then you must attend the 2008 NM Recycling Conference! No matter if you need information about drop-off, curbside, organics management, state grant and loan programs, or working with businesses or apartments, the conference will have something for everyone! We also have almost 30 exhibitors ranging from equipment sales to services to education/outreach information.

The conference launches with Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez to talk about his commitment to reducing waste in his city. New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry, who is a co-sponsor of the event, will talk about the imperative to assess our full range of environmental responsibilities. Keynote speaker Jerry Powell, esteemed editor of Resource Recycling, will take us back into history and forward into the future as to what he sees as trends for the industry. Mr. Powell is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable figures in the recycling industry.

On Tuesday afternoon, June 3rd, we will celebrate our state's recycling champs with the New Mexico Recycling Awards ceremony. Find out who won this year and share in their achievements and recognition! The afternoon ceremony will provide plenty of time before and after to mingle with exhibitors, check out the recycled art for sale (which will only be on view during this afternoon event) and view the recycled fashion outfits.

Recycled artists selling at the NM Recycling Conference include on left Julie Anderson (puppet made from 100% recycled material) and Marion Martinez renowned for her work with computer scrap elements.

Wednesday, June 4th will bring a slew of more amazing break-out sessions plus an all-star cast during the lunch-time Recycled Markets panel. National representatives that work in the specialized fields of plastic, paper, glass, steel and aluminum will bring news of the latest trends in collection and processing of these materials. The afternoon provides time for local recycling processors and for in-depth workshops aimed at the construction and hospitality fields.

This year's tours will provide attendees with a view of how certain materials are processed. Tour #1 will visit Wise Recycling, a large-scale metal recycling and processing company, and Enchantment Electronic Recycling, which handles computers, electronics and "anything that plugs in" for recycling. Tour #2 will take you to Jaco Environmental, the recycling processor for refrigerators collected in PNM's takeback program. More than 95% of the refrigerator is dissembled and processed onsite. RASTRA is the next site visit, where recycled Styrofoam and concrete are blended to create a high-insulation green building block product.

Details about each of the conference break-out sessions have been posted online at http://www.recyclenewmexico.com/Conference08_Program.htm.

Register Today for the NM Recycling Conference: Early Bird Rates Close on May 19th

Go to www.recyclenewmexico.com/conference08.htm

NM State University Main Campus Scores in RecycleMania Contest

RecycleMania is a friendly competition among college and university recycling programs in the United States that provides the campus community with a fun, proactive activity in waste reduction. Over a 10-week period, campuses compete in different contests to see which institution can collect the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate.

NMSU's main campus in Las Cruces ranked 5th in the Partial School Grand Champion category. NMSU also ranked 3rd in the Partial School Targeted Material Paper category. Quite an accomplishment for a first year entrant in the competition. NMSU is one of only two schools in New Mexico that compete in RecycleMania. There were 400 colleges that participated this year in the competition, recycling a total amount of 58.6 million pounds of material.

The main goal of this event is to increase student awareness of campus recycling and waste minimization. All participating schools are required to report measurements on a weekly basis in pounds. RecycleMania provides many ways to gain recognition, including RecycleMania trophies, awards, and participant certificates.

Congratulations NMSU!

http://www.recyclemaniacs.org/Index.htm

National Recycling Coalition Bin Grant Winners

Congratulations to the McKinley Citizen's Recycling Council in Gallup, University of New Mexico and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe for being 3 of the 75 recipients announced on Earth Day this year as NRC Bin Grant recipients. There were 1100 applicants this grant cycle. The next grant cycle will be announced in the Fall of 2008.

http://www.bingrant.org/recipients.htm

Recycling is Important to 91% of American Households

A study conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association to gauge the public's perception of recycling and more importantly to them, how many household plan to replace a TV and if they would recycle that TV.

The findings were interesting:

Recycling is viewed as an important/very important activity by 91% surveyed (up from 85% just 3 years ago).
That 95% of Americans plan to recycle their TV via reuse or a recycling program. In 2008 it is predicted that 32 million new TVs will enter homes with 68.2 million TVs leaving the home.
48% of consumers with over-the-air analog televisions will purchase a converter box.

Click here to view the Executive Summary of the study.

NMED Launches Pilot Fluorescent Bulb Recycling Program

The fluorescent bulb recycling pilot was funded from an allocation made by the 2007 Legislature. Of $100,000 provided to the Mercury Reduction Task Force, it was finally determined in late December that $42,550 would go towards the pilot program.

The Bureau’s goal for the program is to offer fluorescent bulb recycling in four areas of the state that currently do not offer such an opportunity. NMED: Solid Waste Bureau staff and consultant Justin Stockdale and his business Resource Revival secured the following locations: Farmington, the city of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, and Ruidoso (Lincoln County Solid Waste Authority).

Two locations (the city of Santa Fe’s BuRRT facility and the Lincoln County Solid Waste Authority’s Ruidoso recycling facility) will utilize mechanical crushers. The other two venues (Farmington’s recycling center and Santa Fe County’s Eldorado recycling center) will handle the old fluorescent bulbs via a pre-paid mail-back box program.

The pilot launched around Earth Day, April 22, with outreach via press releases, PSAs, and paid advertising to inform the public of this new opportunity to recycle burnt-out fluorescent bulbs.

Citizens will be encouraged to take their old fluorescent bulbs (including the 4-foot straight bulbs, the u-shaped ones, and also the new compact fluorescent bulbs [CFLs]) to the participating location. The pilot intends to encourage business such as hardware stores, wholesale/retail electrical stores, and janitorial firms to join in the program. These establishments would be provided pre-paid mail-back boxes at no charge. Also, PNM will participate with a bi-monthly fluorescent recycling program at their Ruidoso location, in conjunction with the Lincoln County Solid Waste Authority’s efforts.

Two Big E-Waste Collection Events Held in April

The Lincoln County Solid Waste Authority held their recent twice annual event on April 5th and collected 50,000-60,000 pounds of electronics.

In Albuquerque, the annual E-Waste Recycling event sponsored by City of Albuquerque, Intel and KOAT-TV7 on April 4 & 5 collected a little under 413,000 pounds of electronics from 3,058 cars. The event ran smoothly with the average wait to drop-off coming in at 3 minutes. Natural Evolution, a co-sponsor and the electronics recycling processor, purchased carbon credits to offset the fuel used by the 14 semi-trucks used to haul the equipment to the processing facility.

Estancia Community Recycling Program Launched

A few months ago Tracy Blackburn, a teacher at the Estancia Upper Elementary School, contacted the New Mexico Recycling Coalition requesting direction in setting up a recycling program at her school and how to tie in with their community. The school had received a BP A+ for Energy Grant and recycling was part of their formula to conserve energy. Since then she has not only launched recycling at the school, but has started monthly community recycling drives in partnership with the Estancia Valley Solid Waste Authority (EVSWA). The sixth grade class who form the Energy Conservation Committee volunteer for the collection drives.

Ms. Blackburn sent home a recycling survey with all Elementary students prior to any of the recycling activities. Out of 143 returned surveys, 70% said they would recycle if the facilities were available in the community.

After that, the community recycling drives were organized. They happen at the school every second Saturday of the month and accept mixed paper, cardboard, aluminum, copper and brass, ink cartridges, plastic bottles #1 and #2, and plastic grocery bags. Some of the materials will be transported to Albuquerque or Santa Fe for recycling by volunteers. Other items will be sold as a fundraiser for the program.

Some other accomplishments of the Energy Conservation Committee:

*EVSWA has fenced in an area at the Estancia facility for the community to donate their aluminum cans to the Sixth Grade Energy Conservation Committee; will allow us to use their trailer to take cans to market; and will (if not already) provide a sign on the area to advertise collection

*The grant purchased several school recycling containers for aluminum and paper collection

*The County and District Courthouses are collecting all aluminum and paper for the school

*The Torrance County Fair Board will allow the ECC to set up their containers during Old Timer's Day and the County Fair for collections and give the ECC a free educational booth to advertise energy conservation

*The Estancia 4-H Ropers are now on board with conserving energy

*The Elementary Staff are supporting the recycling efforts at school and home; have also started collecting plastic drink containers and ink cartridges; and on top of white paper collections, we are also collecting card board and newspaper

Details on the Estancia Community Drives are detailed in a flyer. Click here to view.

You can reach Tracy Blackburn at tracy.blackburn@estancia.k12.nm.us

April Compost Course Photos

At the April Compost Certification Course in Ruidoso, students calculating bulk density of organic material.

Roger Allen (Biogrind, Inc.) instructs Ann Watson of Santo Domingo Pueblo on the fine art of determining acceptable NM Department of Transportation particle size of compost product.

Green Zia Program Recruiting Judges and Examiners

The Green Zia Program is a state environmental recognition program designed to assist businesses with their environmental impacts and then recognize them for their efforts. Examiners review and score Green Zia
applications and prepare feedback reports for applicants. Feedback reports include opportunities for improvements. Judges review score sheets from examiners and make recommendations as well.

The examiner training date is June 24th. For more information contact Michelle Vattano at 505-827-0677 or michelle.vattano@state.nm.us .

http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/Green_Zia_website/

Safety Starts at The Top Workshop - May 8th

The New Mexico Environment Department in partnership with the Municipal League, Association of Counties and Waste Management of New Mexico will host this free workshop to address the two fatalities in the industry last year and how to prevent further injury.

WHO: The program is aimed at all mayors, county administrators, city council members, county commissioners, and their public works/solid waste management directors that oversee solid waste operations. Directors of solid waste authorities should also attend.

WHEN: Thursday, May 8, 2008, from 9:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. (An on-site lunch buffet is available for $11.50/person cash or check only…includes beverage, tax, and gratuity.)

WHERE: National Hispanic Cultural Center, Wells Fargo Auditorium, 1701 4th Street SW, Albuquerque.

WHAT: The workshop will address what top down safety looks like, including the tools you (as a community leader) can use to provide a safe workplace – mainly focusing on solid waste management – including economics of good/bad safety, OSHA standards and requirements,
awareness, training, resources, creating a safety culture, job hazard analyses, and best policies & procedures.

WHY: If this workshop prevents one fatality, one injury, or one lost workday, then it will be time well spent!

HOW: Presenters from the New Mexico Environment Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau, NMED’s Solid Waste Bureau, Waste Management of New Mexico Inc, the New Mexico Association of Counties, and Safety Counselling, Inc. will provide a wealth of useful information.

For more information or to register, contact E. Gifford Stack at 505-827-2653 or e.gifford.stack@state.nm.us

Click here for complete information on the workshop.

Compete in the NM SWANA RoadRunner Chapter Road-E-O on May 10th

The annual NMSWANA Road-E-O is a great event that shines a spotlight on one of the crucial jobs on the recycling front-line, our drivers. Nationally, this is a top hazardous job and we are fortunate to have so many good drivers in NM. The Road-E-O obstacle course is set up to give drivers opportunity to show their skills backing, parking, mirror work and maneuvering around obstacles. I encourage you to give your drivers an opportunity to "network" with their peers around the state and to spend some time in the spotlight. - Jay Morrow, Co-chair, 08 NMSWANA Road-E-O

Seven events are offered:

Trucks: Front loader, side loader, roll-off and trasnfer trailer

Landfill: Compactor, Dozer and BUcket Loader

Deadline to register is May 2nd. Registration fees are $50 for one event and $100 for two event. The event runs from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM on May 10th at the Albuquerque Cerro Colorado Landill and the Sandia Motor Sports Park.

Grants and Loans

State Loans

NMED Constructions Programs Bureau offers low-interest loans for solid waste projects: http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/cpb/rip.html .

Regional Roundup

Albuquerque: Eagle Rock Convenience Center in Albuquerque has become the first year-round electronic waste recycling facility sponsored by the city. Regular tip fees apply and the center accepts computers and related equipment, stereos, cell phones, cameras, fax machines and DVD/VCR players. Televisions are not accepted. Designed as a residential program, with large producers encouraged to work with local private electronic recycling businesses. More information at www.cabq.gov/solidwaste

Clovis: The Mayor of Clovis will receive delegates from the NM Recycling Coalition in support of developing a stronger recycling collection program.

Gallup: Celebrated Earth Day and Mother Earth this past April 26th with a rummage sale, how-to-recycle demonstrations, a recycling collection drive and composting demonstrations.

Las Cruces: The city of Las Cruces and the South Central Solid Waste Authority have started a task force to develop more convenient recycling options.

Santa Fe: The Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station has started collection of soft-back books as a drop-off recycling item.

Recycling Tidbits

Amazing photo art depicting the consumer lifestyle and what it means when added up. http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php

Connections: Nothing's Wasted, Especially Garbage
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, New York Times
There is much to understand about garbage, and a reluctance, because of its very nature, to look too closely.

Xerox Demonstrates Disappearing Ink

At the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas, Steve Hoover, vice president with Xerox Research Center Webster, shows off a technology being developed in the company's labs that enables people to reuse a piece of paper. The paper contains a photochromic compound that makes ink disappear when hit by direct heat.

http://news.zdnet.com/2422-13748_22-196764.html?tag=nl.e622

Post Office Begins E-Waste Mail-In Pilot Program
The U.S. Postal Service has launched a pilot program in 1,500 post offices throughout the country that will allow customers to recycle small electronics and printer cartridges by mailing them for free.

Ottawa, Ill.-based Clover Technologies Group, which remanufactures and remarkets inkjet and laser cartridges as well as small electronics, will pay for the postage. The pilot program will take place in several cities across the country, including Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore and San Diego.

To read more of this story, click on the headline above.

Calendar

**June 3-4, 2008 New Mexico Recycling Conference, Albuquerque

**July 11, NMRC Board Meeting, Bernalillo County, 11 AM. RSVP to english@recyclenewmexico.com

**September 18, NMRC Board Meeting, Los Alamos, 11 AM. RSVP to english@recyclenewmexico.com

**September 20-24, National Recycling Coalition Congress, Pittsburgh, PA. www.nrc-recycle.org

**November 6-7, NMRC Board Retreat, Sevilleta, time TBA. RSVP to english@recyclenewmexico.com

Recycling and Composting Facility Operator Certification Class Schedule for 2008.

Recycling Facility Operator Certification Course

May 13-15, Grants

December 9-11, Santa Fe

Composting Facility Operator Certification Course

April 15-17, Ruidoso