NMRC Board Meeting
All members are welcome to join the NMRC board
meeting, scheduled Friday, September 21st from 11-4 in Santa Fe. If you are
thinking about running for the board or want to learn more about the
organization, this is a great opportunity to hear what NMRC is up to first-hand and see what a great board we have!
RSVP to
english@recyclenewmexico.com
New Mexico
Recycling Awareness Month
It's that time of
year again for community, business, school and facility coordinators to plan
their November recycling awareness month events.
Please register
online by October 1 at
www.recyclenewmexico.com/NMRAM_2007.htm
New for local
coordinators this year:
1) PowerPoint on "Recycling and
Sustainability". And excellent tool to present to elected officials,
community leaders, neighborhood groups, and businesses. Presentation
developed by New Mexico Environment Department: Solid Waste Bureau.
2) PowerPoint Recycling 101 for Community
Members, which details the traditionally recycled items in any community,
what it becomes after recycling, what it saves in energy and water usage,
and other useful introductory concepts. Presentation developed by Navajo
Nation Solid Waste Management Department.
Other NMRAM Support:
1) Recycled-content give-aways generously
provided by Dex: Rulers, Pen, Pencils, Pencil Sharpeners and Highlighters
2) America Recycles Day posters
3) General recycling educational resources and
information
Greater Albuquerque
Media Campaign
The newest component to
this year's NMRAM events will be a multi-media campaign based in the Greater
Albuquerque area. NMRC has raised funds to bring in a recycling awareness
blast in the month of November with billboards, bus-sides, TV, radio and
print venues. We will announce the campaign message and its final venues! We
have confirmed Mayor Martin Chavez's participation as our spokesperson for
radio and TV PSAs.
NMRAM Sponsors
Without our sponsors this
annual campaign would not be possible! Muchas gracias to the following
sponsors, ink-kind supporters and partners:
City of Albuquerque
Intel
Waste Management
Weyerhaeuser
Dex
Sandia National Laboratory
Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation
New Mexico Environment Department: Solid Waste
Bureau
Keep New Mexico Beautiful
Enchantment Electronic Recycling
Durango McKinley Paper Company
Guaranteed Recycling Experts
Lamar Transit Ad Agency
Clear Channel
KOAT-TV
Citadel Radio
Association of
Counties, BLM and NMRC Partner to Combat Illegal Dumping
The
New Mexico Association of Counties (NMAC) and the New Mexico Recycling
Coalition (NMRC) signed a Fiscal Sponsorship agreement to support “Partners
for a Clean New Mexico” earlier this month.
The fiscal
sponsorship will assist partners implementing initiatives identified by
federal, state and local agencies, communities and other partners to combat
illegal dumping throughout New Mexico. Partners in the effort include the
Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the New Mexico State Land
Office, Environment Department, Tourism Department and Tribes throughout the
State. The New Mexico Association of Counties will solicit funding from the
private sector and the public for this effort and NMRC will receive and
disperse the funds.
Partners for a Clean New Mexico differs from a variety of existing education
and prevention programs in that it is “color blind” in terms of land
ownership; it addresses illegal dumping across the State and combines all
New Mexico land-managing agencies with local governments and jurisdictions.
For more information,
contact Rosemary Herrell, BLM at
505-438-7625
New Mexico Clean & Beautiful:
2007 Governor’s Challenge
What is the 2007
Governor’s Challenge? The Governor’s Challenge is a call to action for all
New Mexicans to recognize that we have a joint responsibility to keep New
Mexico Clean and Beautiful. The 2007 Governor’s Challenge will run through
spring 2008 and will culminate in a gala event to be held in Santa Fe. The
Governor’s Challenge will consist of 3 major statewide events – the School
Litter-ary Awards targeted at 8th grade students and younger; the
“Talk Trash with the Guv” MySpace and YouTube Competition targeted at young
adults between the ages of 15 -26 and the Pickup Olympics targeted at
businesses, non-profits, communities and service organizations throughout
the state.
The Pick Up
Olympics –where any group, family, non-profit, business, school, or
community can arrange a clean-up event. Take pictures and submit a write-up
on the event and you’ll have the chance to win prizes as well as get
recognition from the Governor. Winners will be awarded a silver, gold or
bronze medal and will be recognized at the gala event next spring and on the
New Mexico Clean and Beautiful website.
The Litter-Ary
Awards – for children –kids can create an event, or write a poem, or
create a blog, or design a poster – all to encourage friends, fellow
students and/or family to do their part to clean up the state. Each entrant
(can be an individual, class, or entire school) will be asked to write an
essay about what they did to clean up New Mexico and submit it, prizes will
be awarded to the winner. Schools may plan projects at any time between now
and spring 2008.
Talk Trash with the
Gov – for young adults –where they write poetry, create a video, a
blog, a website, a song, artwork with an anti-litter message, or an idea
they want to share. They could win a chance to record professionally for
the 2008 Litter Campaign. A Talk Trash with the Gov MySpace page has been
launched and contains all contest rules and other information,
http://www.myspace.com/talktrashwiththegov.
For more detailed
information and documents to download about these new challenges please
visit
www.nmcleanandbeautiful.org
and click on the blue button “Governor’s Challenge.”
We hope you’ll get
involved and also pass along this exciting information to get other people
involved with keeping our state clean.
CONTACT: Nichole Romero,
505-764-4444 ext 225, 505-764-8636 (Fax),
nromero@griffinassoc.com,
billltstlktrsh@aol.com
New
Mexico Recycling and Illegal Dumping Grant Announcement
The New Mexico Recycling
and Illegal Dumping Alliance and NMED are very pleased to announce the
opening of a second 2007 grant cycle for recycling and illegal dumping
proposals.
Please Note: Grant applications must be
returned by Monday, October 1, 2007!
The following are
eligible to apply: New Mexico municipalities and counties; solid waste
authorities; pueblos, tribes, and Indian nations; land grant communities;
and cooperative associations. The next grant cycle in 2008 will close on
April 1, 2008. For instructions and application forms, please go to:
www.nmenv.state.nm.us/SWB/.
For questions, please contact Jill Holbert, NMED Solid Waste Bureau, at
827-0129, or e-mail at
jill.holbert@state.nm.us.
Illegal Dumping Enforcement Workshop for
Tribal Lands, October 16
Click here for information
about the upcoming training hosted by New Mexico Environment Department: Solid
Waste Bureau and Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council. The workshop will be all
day and held at UNM-Valencia campus in Los Lunas.
National Recycling Coalition Conference
- Last Chance for Discounted Registration
Experience
the premier national recycling and sustainability conference in Denver this year
from September 16-19, 2007.
Here is the timeline
for early bird registration and discount schedule:
July
1-Aug 31: $605 for members
On-Site Registration: $695 for NRC members
Several sessions will address rural recycling
solutions.
Register online at
www.recyclingconference.org
Santa Fe School Awarded $10K for
Recycling
La Mariposa Montessori teacher David Bailey has
received a grant from BP (British Petroleum) "A+ for Energy" school grant
program. His grant project is titled
"Recycling" a way of conserving, Energy not destroyed or created,
but transformed". The grant allows La Mariposa to set up a permanent recycling
collection and learning center on their campus and purchase a small trailer to
haul the materials to the city's Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station. It
includes weighing the recyclables before transport and creating a Best Practices
program that can be shared with other schools in the area and around the state.
The program targets students in the 3rd-7th grades and will also analyze the
amount of energy conserved by the amount of material they recycle. The will also
look at how much energy it takes to make the products in their waste stream both
from virgin and recycled materials.
For more information, contact David Bailey at
bailey8000@mac.com
For more information on the grant program, go
to
www.aplusforenergy.com
One-Quarter Of Americans Do Not Recycle In
Their Own Home
The Harris Poll® #67, July 11, 2007
While an impressive three-quarters (77%) of
American adults recycle something in their own home, one-quarter (23%) still
recycle nothing at all. One may think that the younger generation is the one
most likely to recycle, but this is not the case. Three in ten (30%) Echo
Boomers (those aged 18 to 30) recycle nothing, compared to 19 percent of Matures
(those aged 62 and older).
There is also a regional difference in who
recycles and who does not. Those in the East and West are more likely to recycle
(88% and 86% respectively). One-third (32%) of those in the South as well as
three in ten (30%) of those in the Midwest, however, say they recycle nothing.
These are some of the results of a Harris Poll
of 2,372 adults surveyed online between June 5 and 11, 2007 by Harris
Interactive®. This survey was conceived and developed by
Harris Interactive and was not commissioned by any organization; however, we
sought and received valuable input from the Food Marketing Institute.
What Is Recycled?
When it comes to recycling, two-thirds of
adults (67%) say they recycle aluminum or metal cans, while three in five (59%)
recycle paper and 57 percent recycle plastic. Just over half of adults (54%)
recycle glass. While those in the South are recycling less than the other
regions in general, this is especially true with regard to some of these items.
Just half (50%) of Southerners are recycling paper while under half (46%) of
Southerners recycle plastic and just 39 percent recycle glass.
Why Don’t They Recycle?
Among those who do not recycle, the reasons are
very varied. One in six (15%) say they do not recycle because it is not
available in their area while 12 percent each say it takes too much effort and
it costs more to recycle where they live. Just one in ten (11%) say they do not
recycle because they don’t believe it makes a difference while six percent say
they are too busy and five percent say it is too difficult.
Southerners might be more inclined to recycle
if it was cheaper and actually available. One in five (20%) of those who live in
the South do not recycle because it isn’t available in their area, while an
additional 14 percent say it is because it costs more where they live. For those
in the East who do not recycle, laziness may be the reason. One-quarter of
Easterners (26%) say they do not recycle because it takes too much effort.
More information and study results at
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=783
Research
Identifies U.S. Electronic Waste as Likely Source of Toxic Jewelry Imports
from China
Ashland, Ohio. July 11,
2007. For Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer, a professor of chemistry at Ashland
University in Ashland, Ohio, a trip to a local dollar store to buy jewelry
samples for his class to analyze, turned into a year-long research project
on the global trade in toxic products. The research, soon to be published
in two papers in the journal
Chemosphere, identifies electronic solders from electronic waste
and old car batteries as likely sources for the lead that has been recently
discovered in trinket and charm jewelry samples imported from China.
In 2002, the Seattle based Basel Action Network (BAN) in its report
“Exporting Harm” revealed that about 80 percent of the electronic waste in
the United States that is brought to recyclers is in fact not recycled in
the United States but exported to Asia, and especially China where it is
melted down in primitive, environmentally damaging conditions including the
cooking and melting of computer circuit boards in vast quantity.
Dr. Weidenhamer’s analytical work now implicates electronic waste as a
source of the lead that comes back to harm our children in the form of toxic
children’s jewelry made in China for the American market. The vast majority
of electronic waste found in China comes from North America.
“Unfortunately, this appears to be a case of us reaping what we have sown,”
said Weidenhamer. “Recent news paints a picture that China is exporting all
kinds of horrors to us, yet our research suggests that we are part of a
circle of poison – with our own hazardous waste not only harming the
Chinese, but also being recycled into products coming back to harm our
children. If so, we must take responsibility to halt these hazardous waste
exports.”
Leaded children’s metal jewelry has been the subject of increasing scrutiny
in the U.S. since the 2006 lead poisoning death of a young Minnesota boy who
swallowed a heart-shaped charm that was later found to contain more than 99
percent lead by weight. Since Jan. 1, there have been 26 recalls of more
than 8 million lead-contaminated items of jewelry, toys and clothing, many
of them imported from China. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)
is currently considering a ban on children’s jewelry containing more than
0.06 percent lead by weight. A decision is expected on this proposal by
early 2008.
Dr. Weidenhamer, his students and colleague Michael Clement found that some
of the jewelry items they analyzed were composed primarily of lead and tin
(the principle components of electronic solders), with minor amounts of
copper. They found that copper, which is another component of printed
circuit boards, will rapidly move into lead-tin solder when melted. They
then analyzed 39 highly leaded jewelry items that contained more than 90
percent lead by weight and found that these contained significant amounts of
antimony, a key component of the lead alloy in lead-acid batteries.
For Dr. Weidenhamer, trained as an ecologist, the hypothesis that leaded
hazardous wastes might be recycled into leaded products was a natural
connection to make. Before analyzing the jewelry his class had analyzed
circuit boards for their lead content and studied the global e-waste trade.
When his class then found high levels of lead in many of the imported
Chinese jewelry items, it seemed reasonable to suspect there might be a link
and he contacted BAN who had earlier documented US electronic waste being
recycled in hazardous conditions in China.
“In China we wondered what became of the old solder collected by bucketfuls
each day by the thousands of workers cooking circuit boards there,” said Jim
Puckett, coordinator of BAN. “When Jeff called me after substantiating the
hypothesis, it made sense. In a globalized world, pollution knows no
borders so the US government’s policy of allowing a free trade in hazardous
waste has come back to haunt and hurt us.”
United States is the only developed country in the world that has failed to
ratify the Basel Convention, which has been ratified by 170 countries around
the world to put strict controls on the import and export of hazardous
wastes. In fact, the United States has exempted circuit boards and most
electronic waste from the scant laws it does have controlling export of
hazardous wastes. Further, they have fought openly against the
implementation of the Basel Ban Amendment which forbids the global export of
hazardous wastes from developed to developing countries.
Lead is a highly toxic metal that may cause a range of health effects, from
behavioral problems and learning disabilities, to seizures and death. Young
children are most at risk, because their brains and nervous systems are more
sensitive to the effects of lead than adults, and recent research indicates
that even small quantities of lead can cause significant neurological
injury. While lead paint remains the major hazard to children in the United
States, lead’s high toxicity gives reason to eliminate all unnecessary
exposure, especially for children.
Website:
http://www.ban.org
Sony and Waste Management Team Up for
Electronics Recycling
Sony (Tokyo) and Waste Management (Houston) are partnering to create the first
national e-scrap recycling program to involve both a major consumer electronics
manufacturer and a national waste management company. The service will be
launched on September 15, 2007.
The
Sony Take Back Recycling Program
will enable consumers to drop-off all Sony-branded electronics free-of-charge at
79 Waste Management Recycle America eCycling centers located around the U.S.
Other brands of electronics may be dropped off at the centers as well, but will
be subject to a recycling fee.
The number of participating locations is expected to increase to at least
150 sites within a year. The program's goal is to eventually have locations in
all 50 states, and a recycling center within 20 miles of 95 percent of the U.S.
population.
With the inauguration of the program, Sony hopes to reach its goal of
recycling one pound of e-scrap for every pound of new products sold.
Ted Smith, chair of the Computer Takeback Coalition (San Jose,
California) said, "We have expressed concerns to [Sony] that they must ensure
that their hazardous e-waste is not exported to countries where it could cause
serious pollution."
Bobby Farris, director of electronics recycling for WM Recycle America,
responding by telling Resource Recycling's sister publication, E-Scrap
News, "[The equipment] will be processed domestically by WM Recycle America
dismantling locations and service partners according to our published
environmental standards. Bulk export or prison labor will not be utilized by any
of our locations."
A full list of participating Waste Management eCycling locations is
available
here.
None are sited in New Mexico as of yet.
Source:
Resource Recycling
EPA Lifecycle Building Challenge
Recognizes Albuquerque Grad Student
Suhasini Shivaji Hyderabad, a student at the
University of New Mexico, received an Honorable Mention in the recent EPA
Lifecycle Building Challenge with a project titled:
AHP–Based
Selection Model for Best Sustainable Practices for Construction Projects. She
has worked closely with members of the Construction and Demolition Recycling
Task Force and used resources found in the recent New Mexico Construction &
Demolition Recycling Guide to support her work. Congratulations!
Regional Round-Up
Albuquerque:
Will begin launch of the multi-family collection program.
Santa Fe:
Planning to go to weekly collection and a PAYT rate structure in 2008.
State:
New Mexico Department of Transportation has identified 6 research topics for
their upcoming year and one will look further into
"Tire Bale
Applications - Developing standards for the use of tire bales in erosion control
applications."
Recycling Tidbits
Aluminum is a relatively young material, commercially
speaking; in barely more than 150 years since the first time
it was produced for commercial use, it is now the world’s
second most used metal, following only steel. Recycling
aluminum requires 95 percent less energy than producing
aluminum from bauxite, as compared to recycling steel (60
percent less energy than production from virgin sources),
paper (40 percent less energy) and glass (33 percent less
energy).
Nearly 65 percent the average automobile is steel and iron.
The Steel Recycling Institute notes that the industry
recycles about 14 million tons of shredded scrap steel from
automobiles each year, a recycling rate of 95 percent.
Calendar
**September 16-19,
National
Recycling Coalition Congress,
Denver
**September 21, NMRC Board Meeting, Santa Fe, 11-4 PM
**Nov 30-Dec 1, NMRC Board Retreat,
Sevilleta
|
Recycling and Composting Facility Operator Certification
Class Schedule for 2007 - Register Online Today!
October 23-25, Compost Class,
Albuquerque
December 4-6, Recycling Class,
Albuquerque
You can also call 505-983-4470 to
register.
|
If you have questions about any of the
above information or have articles for future Recycling
Scraps, please e-mail or call me.
English Bird
Executive
Director
New Mexico Recycling Coalition
PO Box 24364, Santa Fe, NM 87502
english@recyclenewmexico.com
(505)
983-4470
Fax (505)
466-6266
