New Mexico Recycling Coalition

Marlene Feuer Awarded 2007 New Mexico Recycler of the Year

At the NMRC Annual Meeting and Recycling Workshop held on May 23, the NMRC was pleased to recognize Marlene Feuer as the 2007 NM Recycler of the Year. Many excellent nominees were submitted this year and we look forward to our 2008 Recycling Awards ceremony, which includes more than 1 dozen categories of recycling recognition.

O. Paul Gallegos, NMRC Board President presents Marlene Feuer with the 2007 NM Recycler of the Year award.

Marlene has worked in the solid waste industry for more than 25 years and admits to being a “recycler at heart”. She is currently serving her third term on the NMRC board and continues to be one of NMRC’s most active members, always ready to support an initiative or provide her two cents. For NMRC’s policy initiatives, she has supported the Recycling Equipment Tax Credit in 2005 and 2006 with legislative and interim committee hearing attendance and lent her guidance and experience to this year’s NM Legislative session, as NMRC waded through some choppy political waters. She has also been of great assistance to the NM Solid Waste Management Plan process, the revision of the Solid Waste Management Regulations, the Recycling and Illegal Dumping Alliance, the Construction and Demolition Recycling Task Force and the planning of the Annual Meeting.

At her day job at Waste Management, as Government & Public Affairs Manager, Marlene provides assistance to five solid waste hauling divisions and three Sub-title D sanitary landfills in New Mexico. She oversees the contractual compliance of more than forty local government contracts. She recently worked diligently to get the City of Hobbs started with their recycling program this March and worked with Bernalillo County in 2005-2006 to launch their curbside recycling program.

As Chair of the 2006 Conference Committee, she lent her keen business skills to craft the conference into not only an exceptional educational, networking and marketing opportunity for attendees, but formulated the budget so that the event also became a fund-raiser for NMRC. She put in hours of work towards this event, with it’s year of lead time of planning, by hosting committee hearings, developing a strong program, attracting exhibitors and sponsors through her network and providing guidance at every turn.

Everyone that knows Marlene, knows that if there is a problem and she can help solve it, she will. Her community customers know this and the NMRC board and its members know this. She is never too busy to take your call or read and respond to an email…no matter how trivial the matter. She is a “can-do” person and I don’t know what the recycling world would do without people like her!

NMRC Annual Meeting Highlights Available

With more than 70 attendees, the NMRC Annual Meeting and Recycling Workshop was incredibly educational and a great success.

Click here to check out the presentations from the workshop on Climate Change in Regard to Recycling and on NMRC's Policy Initiatives and Programs.

Construction & Demolition Recycling Guide Available

The NMRC and the C&D Recycling Task Force is pleased to announce that they have updated a Construction and Demolition Recycling Guide, listing such helpful topics as:

1) Why, how and what to recycle

2) Subcontract agreements to recycle

3) Solid Waste Management plan for construction project

4) Standard Volume-to-Weight Conversions

5) Recycling vs Disposal Cost Analysis Work Sheet

6) NM Case Studies of Construction Site Recycling

7) Resources to contact haulers, end-markets, on-site mulching and LEED consultants.

We would like to widely distribute this publication, so please let english@recyclenewmexico.com know how many copies you would like to distribute in your community. If you know of builder/designer organizations in your community that would benefit from this guide, please mention that as well.

The guide was sponsored and underwritten by Keep New Mexico Beautiful, Associated General Contractors - New Mexico Building Branch, Builders Trust of New Mexico, Home Builders Association of New Mexico and BuildGreen New Mexico. Many thanks to these organization's support!

Information will be available online as part of the existing Recycling Directory search engine and also as a Construction Recycling web page.

Click here to download the C&D Recycling Guide.

National Recycling Coalition Conference - Registration Schedule

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:

By June 30: $495 for NRC members

July 1-Aug 31: $605 for NRC members

On-Site Registration: $695 for NRC members

If you are a NMRC Associate member, please call English Bird at 983-4470 to be upgraded to the Individual level. The $445 rate saves you $250 off onsite registration rates.

There are also a limited number of volunteer slots available to help offset registration costs.

New Mexico Businesses may want to consider exhibiting at the conference. Rates start at $15/sq ft. Go to "Exhibit Opportunities" at the www.recyclingconference.org website.

College students may apply for scholarship funds to attend the conference. Applications due by August 3rd. Applications will be available online at
http://nrc-recycle.org/curc.aspx starting May 7 or by contacting NRC program manager, Alec Cooley at (843) 278-7686 or alecc@nrc-recycle.org

Recycling Business Highlights:

RASTRA Opens Styrofoam (EPS) Processing Facility in Albuquerque

RASTRA Corp. has opened a processing plant in Albuquerque. Rastra is a stay-in-place insulated concrete form (ICF) system made of a lightweight composition with a higher-than 80% content of recycled foam plastic and cement. The facility has already sold all produced material for the first 100 days of operation.

In the first phase after opening, the Rastra facility will run a “one shift operation” and will employ approximately 10 workers. Each day the facility will produce enough material to build a 3-bedroom home. RASTRA is planning to start running a “two shift operation” later this year, creating additional jobs in the Albuquerque area.

Photo on left is a McDonald's built with Rastra material and the photo to the right is the Rastra Element material that provides the building's wall structure.

Architects, contractors, developers, and home owners have looked for a long time to find the ideal building system. After years of development, RASTRA has successfully strengthened and maintained its position as the building system for the coming centuries. The ideal combination of physical properties of the RASTRA walls is unsurpassed by any other building material known. A perfect formula for a healthy home. The short construction time and versatility and ease to form stylish elements assure that you can enjoy all this comfort in less time than it takes to build in traditional ways.

The RASTRA building system is the ultimate answer for economical and environmental effective construction. It has a high insulation value and is resistant against fire, frost and other climate influences. It takes stucco or other types of wall covering very well. Installation of the RASTRA elements is very simple and does not require special skills or tools, making it well suited for the owner/builder.

RASTRA walls go up faster than other conventional methods of building, unlike framed walls, Rastra walls are immediately ready for finishing. The Rastra elements are simply stacked and once one floor is done the cells are filled with concrete, which lends the wall its structural stability. The blocks can be cut and shaped with just about any woodworking tool an electric chainsaw works great or you can cut them by hand or even sculpture it.

RASTRA has set the standard for over 30 years and thousands of buildings in the USA and overseas for residences, office buildings, commercial and institutional structures and other commercial applications.

RASTRA has a large demand for un-densified and uncompressed Styrofoam (EPS) of every dimension and size for the new Albuquerque Plant. RASTRA will work with communities and businesses around the state to organize pick-up of the material and advise how best to collect this material. Collection bags are given to all providers and for large volume collectors, a dumpster is available. University of New Mexico has successfully been collecting material via dumpster and has not had problems handling the material. There is no limit to the amount of material the facility can receive.

A drop-off container at the facility will also be available for the public to take styrofoam at 108 Dale in Albuquerque.

Please contact Walter Amon for more information at the Arizona RASTRA headquarters at walter@rastra.com or (480) 443-9211 ext 209. Information about the company can be found online at www.rastra.com

Green Acre - A Hotel of Paper

Mikey Sklar and Wendy Tremayne of Truth or Consequences are collecting all the newspaper they can find. They are in the process of building a hotel from waste materials. The rooms and venue of the hotel will be used shipping containers. The fence and insulation are papercrete which is a mix of mostly paper and a small amount of cement.

Mikey built a custom mixer with a friend last fall out of a old
Ford truck axle. The differential was turned 90 degrees and a stock
tank sits on top with a with a lawn mower blade poking through.
Their mix of papercrete consists of two parts paper and one part
cement (measured by dry weight). Just add water and drag the mixer
loaded with paper, water, and cement for 1/3 of a mile. The resulting
slurry is then poured into wood forms to make blocks and slabs.

Both the fence and shipping containers have used nearly five tons
of paper this spring. The shipping containers which are made of
steel and can be found to have a wall temperature of 170F on a bad
day. Once parts of a shipping container were covered with papercrete
a 65 degree wall temperature drop was recorded. Papercrete
offers a R value of 3.2 per inch. This is significantly more
insulation than adobe and almost competitive with straw bale.

Mikey and Wendy spend their days working in the yard making adobe
like blocks of paper. The blocks are laid 16" thick offering a
minimum insulation value of R=50. Building code requires a new home
to have a minimum insulation of R=20. Each day 180 blocks (800 lbs
of paper) are produced and dried in the sun. The next day the blocks
are placed and mortared together with more paper. After a few days
of drying the walls of paper adobe blocks are then stucco'd. The
stucco is nothing more than paper and a slightly higher mixture of
cement.

Newspaper can be troublesome to obtain. The local recycle center
and newspaper were able to provide the first 5 tons of paper.
However, there is now a need to bring in paper from other nearby
towns. Major cities like Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and El Paso already
have regular recycle pickups and sales. Smaller towns like Belen
and Socorro are the next destinations for waste paper.

For more information about the Green Acre hotel or Papercrete
checkout their web-site:

http://screwdecaf.cx/eco-lodge.html

NM SWANA Road-E-O June 2

The NM RoadRunner chapter of SWANA is holding its annual Road-E-O competition at the Caja del Rio Landfill, 149 Wildlife Way in Santa Fe on June 2nd. For more information call (505) 872-0164 or email JoAnne Weaver at boardroom@dgstrategies.com

Regional Round-Up

Silver City: The Southwest Solid Waste Authority has done such a good job educating the city/county about using tire bales for erosion control projects that they are practically running out of tire bales.

Bernalillo County: The county commission just approved twice a year curbside collection of green waste to be timed with Albuquerque's collection schedule. The Solid Waste Department hopes to expand to more collection dates in coming year.

Taos Pueblo: Launched their recycling program in February and have seen great participation. They work with the Town of Taos to process materials.

Moriarty: P&M Plastics Recycled Sign Business Continues to Grow. See story at Http://www.smallwoodnews.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=885

Recycling Tidbits

STAPLES EXPANDS ITS E-WASTE RECYCLING PROGRAM

Staples Inc., the world's largest office products retailer, is expanding its electronics-waste recycling program by accepting used computers and monitors for a $10 fee at any of its 1,400 U.S. locations. Framingham, Mass.-based Staples is following similar initiatives by many computer-makers and retailers to confront the growing environmental and public-health risk posed by discarded electronics equipment. This most recent initiative expands on its 4-year-old program that allows customers to drop off smaller devices such as cell phones, pagers and digital cameras for free. It makes Staples the first to accept computers for recycling on a daily ongoing basis. Staples said its program will ship the devices for domestic recycling by Vestal, N.Y.-based Amandi Services, which Staples calls "one of the country's most experienced and innovative electronics recyclers." Amandi was formed by ther merger of NxtCycle and Envirocycle...Read More »

Denver Recycling Program Article

http://www.westword.com/2007-04-26/news/the-hunt-for-green/

National Survey Reveals More than 70% of Americans Don't Know Plastic is Made from Oil

40% believe plastic will biodegrade at some point

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070420/20070420005536.html

P&G Reduces Packaging

Procter & Gamble Co. has re-packaged all of their liquid detergent brands to be sold as double-strength in an effort to make smaller containers and thus reduce packaging. brands include Tide, Gain, Cheer, Era, and Dreft. The containers will provide the same amount of loads in a bottle half the size.

Washington Requires Event Recycling

All sporting events and official gatherings will be required to have recycling programs in Washington State, thanks to the recent passing of House Bill 2056. Beginning July 22, 2007, every sporting facility and official gathering will be required to have a recycling program in place to be provided by vendors who sell beverages in single-use aluminum, glass or plastic bottles or cans. The act only targets communities with an established curbside-only service and commercial recycling. The bill also includes a provision which specifies that either clearly-marked recycling receptacles or reverse vending machines be used for the collection of the containers.

EPA Green Conventions online information

http://www.epa.gov/region1/greenconventions/

More C&D than MSW in waste stream

While exact statistics on the size of the C&D industry are difficult to come by, a comparison to the size of the MSW waste stream is useful. MSW runs about 215 to 220 million tons per year, but C&D, including all bridge and roadwork demolition, runs well over 300 million tons, including estimates by the Construction Materials Recycling Association, the National Demolition Association, and the federal EPA.

Green Dimes Plants Trees and Stops Junk Mail

www.GreenDimes.com is a socially conscious, accountable consumer lifestyle company committed to raising awareness of the environmental degradation caused by the production and eventual disposal of junk mail.

E-Scrap 2007: The North American Electronics Recycling Conference

October 24-25, 2007

Hyatt Regency Atlanta

Atlanta, GA

www.e-scrapnews.com

Plastics Recycling 2008: The North American Plastics Recycling Conference

February 26-27, 2008

Hyatt Regency Jacksonville

Jacksonville, FL

www.plasticsrecycling.com

Calendar

**July 20, NMRC Board Meeting, Rio Rancho, 12-4 PM