What is America Recycles day?

~ Leslie Witter

On November 15^th join recyclers nationwide to celebrate the second annual America Recycles Day (ARD). Sponsored by the EPA and various companies, ARD focuses on the goal of increasing recycling and the purchase of recycled materials. This year the theme is "If you're not buying recycled, you're not really recycling!". It stresses the importance of closing the loop and supporting markets for recycled materials.

The first annual event last year was a huge success. ARD generated almost 200 million media impressions. 750,000 people took the pledge to increase their recycling efforts. Increased recycling rates illustrated the success of ARD in promoting public awareness. For example, in the month after ARD, Long Beach, California saw a 12% increase in recyclable materials collected at curbside.

It's time to put the national spotlight on recycling again, reminding people to make this simple action a priority not just on ARD, but all year long. Get involved and pledge to recycle and buy recycled products. Then enter the ARD contest to win the American Green Dream House. It is built mainly with recycled content products, and incorporates energy-efficient materials and solar heating. To enter, visit one of the local pledge card locations or check out www.americarecyclesday.org.

Browse the Washtenaw County homepage (www.co.washtenaw.mi.us/depts/eis.htm) or our U of M Recycling website (www.recycle.umich.edu) for more ARD information.

...........See page 2 for a listing of local ARD events.

WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND A²?

Nov. 9-15: Recycled-content product displays at the Guy Larcom Jr. Municipal Building and local businesses like Michigan Book and Supply, White Market, and the State Street Hallmark. Pledge cards available at the above locations and at the Ecology Center, Scrap Box, Peoples Food Co-op, the City of Ann Arbor Drop-Off Station, and Washtenaw Co. Public Works Div. Michigan Recycles and EnAct (student organizations) info tables around campus.

Nov. 10, 3-5 p.m.: A² Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) open-house featuring facility tours, recycled-content displays, and a workshop to make birdfeeders from recycled pop bottles and milk cartons.

Nov. 14, 9-5 p.m.: Door prize drawings at the En-House (exhibit featuring construction using recycled-content materials and energy efficiency) at the Recycle Ann Arbor Reuse Center.

Nov. 14, 10-noon: MRF open-house; see Nov. 10.

Nov. 14, U of M vs. Wisconsin football game: Public announcements, banners, and scoreboard messages to promote ARD. Informational tables with pledge cards available. Turn in a pledge card and receive an official America Recycles Day souvenir.

Nov. 15, 1998 Football Game Clean-up: The Gabriel Richard students, who regularly clean the Stadium after games, will be joined by staff from U of M Waste Management Office and student volunteers to separate plastic stadium beverage cups from the trash so that they can be recycled.

Nov. 15, 1998: The Ann Arbor Brewing Company will donate 10% of its sales to Recycle Ann Arbor. Live music and a recycled-content product display will be featured.

Let "America Recycles Day" get you psyched about recycling, but remember this is only one part of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" equation. In 1970, 7% of America's waste was recycled and 113 million tons were sent to landfills. Today recycling has jumped to 27%, but the amount of material landfilled has also risen to over 150 million tons per year.

The fourth annual Use Less Stuff (ULS) Day is November 19^th, the Thursday before Thanksgiving. It reminds us of the importance of waste prevention. Specifically, the ULS Report, EPA, Keep America Beautiful, and over 250 other organizations joining to celebrate ULS Day hope to raise public awareness about holiday waste. Between Thanksgiving and New Years Day the United States generates 25 million tons of trash. That's an extra one million tons of trash per week as compared to other times of the year. On ULS Day pledge to practice Earth-friendly alternatives to wasteful holiday practices.

Page 3

33 Ways to Reduce Holiday Waste:

1. Combine shopping trips to save energy and gas.
2. Use reusable shopping bags.
3. Consolidate merchandise into fewer bags.
4. Buy gifts that are durable, re-usable, energy-efficient, and won't go out of style quickly.
5. Give an earth-friendly gift like a compost bin or a reusable lunch box. Check out the "Real Goods" catalog online at www.realgoods.com/products/.
6. Give a magazine subscription.
7. Give gift certificates to restaurants, movies, a hot tub parlor, spa, or massage therapist. Concert tickets or tickets to sporting events are also good ideas.
8. Give a personal coupon book containing coupons redeemable for yard work, babysitting, a batch of cookies, a trip to a museum or amusement park, etc.
9. Make gifts; a home-cooked meal or fresh baked goodies are a nice thought. If you're artistic, give your artwork. Frame a special photograph, or put together a photo album.
10. Make a donation in a friend's name.
11. Buy gifts at second hand and thrift stores. This saves money and supports non-profit and local businesses.
12. Give used books, toys, music, or antiques.
13. Check out second hand stores for holiday decorations, extra dishware, and evening wear for holiday parties.
14. Use edible or compostable items like popcorn or cranberry strings, or items "found" around the house for tree decorations.
15. Cut covers off old greeting cards and use these as gift tags or postcards instead of buying new ones.
16. Make your own cards.
17. If you do buy new cards or envelopes, look for ones with recycled content.
18. Wrap gifts in fabric scraps, reusable gift bags, reused wrapping paper, comics, magazines, maps, or old calendar pages.
19. Make your own wrapping paper by decorating grocery bags, office waste paper, etc.
20. Think of creative gift wrapping options: wrap a kitchen gift in a dish towel or tablecloth, a gift for a handyman in a toolbox, a present for a gardener in a planter or bucket, an apron for a cook. Backpacks or cloth shopping bags can also be used as gift bags.
21. Use natural items like holly and dried leaves and flowers to decorate gifts.
22. Skip the wrapping paper and decorate oversized gifts with just a bow.
23. When buying wrapping paper look for recycled content.
24. Check out www.ciwmb.ca.gov/GRA/OPA/Campaign/Holiday/No-Waste.htmfor more creative gift-wrapping ideas.
25. Before recycling gift catalogs, pick out the ones you don't want to receive and call their toll-free numbers and ask to be removed from their mailing list.
26. When opening presents, set aside a box to collect reusable ribbons, bows, decorations, cards, and wrapping paper.
27. Save gift boxes for reuse ­ or recycle them.
28. Drop off extra packaging at local private mailing centers (call the Plastic Loosefill Council at 1-800-828-2214 for a list of local businesses that recycle packing peanuts and bubble wrap). Or recycle polystyrene peanuts at the City of Ann Arbor's Drop-off Station at 2950 E. Ellsworth.
29. Use washable rather than disposable dishware at holiday parties.
30. Reduce food waste. Plan portions carefully. If you have lots of leftovers have your guests take some home.
31. Buy film in rolls of 36 rather than 12 exposures. This reduces waste by 67% and saves approximately $4.00.
32. Hold a White Elephant Party after the holidays. Have friends bring gifts that they don't want. Put these on a table and let others pick out an item they like.
33. Check out www.uwm.edu/dept/besmart/business/holiday/holiday.html for more holiday waste reduction ideas.

Thanks to the many of you who responded and sent submissions for Earthspiration. In this edition we are featuring an original poem by one of our readers. We will print more of your suggestions in upcoming newsletters. E-mail submissions to Recycling (get address) (38.103.63.61).

The EPA estimates that packaging makes up 33% of America's municipal solid waste. However, there are lots of opportunities to cut this percentage:

Source reduce:

• Look for products with minimal packaging.
• Use concentrated products.
• Look for lightweight packaging that holds a lot of product without adding much weight.
• Buy bulk. But, only do this if you will use all of the product. Throwing away unused product defeats the purpose.
• Avoid individually wrapped and travel size products.
• Choose reusables over disposables.
• Consolidate purchases into fewer bags. Better yet, bring your own reusable bags or skip the bag if you are only buying one or two items.

Reuse:

• Reuse all types of bags.
• Reuse packaging materials, like polystyrene (foam) peanuts and bubble wrap. Better alternatives are newspaper, cloth, or packing peanuts made of corn starch.
• Think of creative uses for packaging. For example, use egg cartons to hold and sort supplies. Plastic liners from cereal boxes are great for covering food for microwaving.

Encourage Recycling:

• Buy products made from recycled material (especially post-consumer recycled content).
• Write or call manufacturers and suggest that they use recycled or recyclable products and cut down on excess packaging.
• Ask store managers if the plastic grocery bags they provide contain recycled plastic. If they don't, encourage them to make the switch.

*Some of these tips can be found at: cygnus_group.com/packaging/Packaging.html.

   Glass Galore:   

Glass manufacturing is an ancient process, dating back to between 10,000 and 3,000 B.C. As it evolved, the glass container industry consistently used in-house scrap material. However, environmental concerns and recent improvements in production techniques resulting in less in-house scrap have caused manufacturers and the public to combine efforts to utilize post-consumer materials. The first organized attempt to collect post-consumer glass bottles took place in New Jersey in 1968. Since then, glass recycling has exploded and is a strong component of most recycling programs.

Most glass jars and bottles are made from soda-lime glass, a mixture of sand, soda ash, and limestone. These ingredients are blended and melted in a glass furnace at temperatures of 2600°-2800° F. The molten glass is molded or blown into container shapes and cooled in an annealing oven to strengthen the glass.

Recycled glass is used in the form of cullet, post-consumer container glass that has been processed to remove contaminants, sorted by color, and crushed to uniform size. The cullet is mixed with the three raw materials at the beginning of the manufacturing process. Recycled glass melts at lower temperatures, reducing the operating temperatures of glass furnaces and subsequently saving energy and reducing fuel use. Currently, most new glass containers contain 25-30% recycled content.

The biggest obstacle for glass recycling is contamination. The most common contaminants are metals, non-container glass, dirt and gravel, and organics. These can alter the physical properties of glass resulting in defective products or damage to the equipment.

The need to control contamination has led to growth of intermediate processors that receive glass from recycling programs, remove contaminants, and provide uniform feedstock to glass manufacturers. In the decontamination process recycled glass is passed through a magnet to remove ferrous metals. Ceramics and other contaminants are separated manually. The glass is crushed to a uniform size and finally passed through a secondary metal detection system to remove non-ferrous metals. New technologies are improving these processes. Computerized fiber optics and air jets are being used to sort the colored glass, x-rays detect rocks and ceramics, and magnets and eddy current separators remove metal.

Glass recycling has improved throughout the 1990's. In 1996, 38% of all glass containers sold in the U.S. were recycled, up from 28% in 1990. Here at U of M glass bottles and jars are collected along with plastic bottles and metal cans in 'mixed container' bins. In this comingled system the various types of containers are separated at the Ann Arbor Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). However, we can all do our part by rinsing glass containers and removing lids and caps. Metal lids, unattached to bottles, can be recycled in the mixed container bins, but plastic lids must be discarded. Another program attempting to conserve resources is the bottle deposit system. Glass recovered this way is often cleansed and refilled. Glass containers can be refilled 14-20 times. Return, reuse, and recycle to keep the 37 billion glass containers produced annually in the U.S. out of the landfill!

Why Recycle Glass?

• For every ton of glass recycled 961,330 lbs. sand, 433 lbs. soda ash, 433 lbs. limestone, and 151 lbs. feldspar are saved.
• Each ton of reclaimed glass saves 9 gallons of fuel oil.
• Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours.
• The manufacturing of glass using recycled material releases 14-20% less air pollution than when virgin materials only are used.
• Recycling one ton of glass lowers carbon dioxide emissions by 3.46 tons.
• Lower furnace temperatures extend furnace life.

Better the Second Time Around!

Glass bottle manufacturers require cullet made from recycled container glass. However, non-container glass and mixed color cullet are remanufactured into other items:

· glasphalt · glascrete · bricks · fiberglass · wallboard and insulation · abrasives for sandblasting · lubricants, core additives, and fluxes in metal foundry work · frictionators for lighting matches and firing ammunition · beads used in reflective paint · beads used to clean metals · ceramic tiles · picture frames · costume jewelry

Fun Facts

• Americans throw out enough glass bottles and jars every two weeks to fill the 1,350 foot towers of the World Trade Center.
• In 1996 glass made up 5.9% by weight of municipal solid waste (MSW).
• 90% of the glass in MSW is from containers.
• In 1996, 38% of all glass produced in the U.S. was recycled (includes returnables that were refilled), up from 22% in 1988.

The final numbers are in! During the 1997-98 school year, 31 tons of food waste from three dining hall kitchens were collected for composting. Funding for the pilot project came from the Washtenaw County Department of Public Works "Greenbacks for Green Acts" program. U of M Waste Management Services collected the food waste three times per week and transported it to the City of Ann Arbor's Composting Facility. A special area was marked for the food waste compost windrow. This project enabled the Composting Facility to become a test site for composting food scraps on a large scale. Michigan Law currently prohibits composting of vegetative food waste.

The success of the program was due largely to the cooperation of University Housing's, Dining Services personnel at Mary Markley, South Quad and East Quad. The program targeted kitchen "prep" waste and provided dining services staff with an alternative means of disposing of this waste. Rather than using a food disposal unit or trash can, bright green 32-gallon wheeled carts were placed near work stations in the kitchen. Smaller 16-gallon carts were used near coffee stations to collect coffee grounds and filters. A survey of AFSCME dining staff indicated this system was as easy as any previous methods used.

Although the grant has expired, U of M Waste Mgt. Services is funding the continuation of the program through 1999. Expansion is being considered. This would impact the waste stream within University Housing. A March 1998 residence hall waste sort determined food waste made up 6.9% of the waste stream by volume and 25.3% by weight.

The program received local attention from the Ann Arbor News, The University Record, WEMU radio and Ann Arbor Community Television. The first program of its kind in the State of Michigan, U of M is paving the way for future organics composting.

Way to Go!

• In July, Hospital Patient Accounts in North Ingalls Building cleaned out their records room and recycled 7.13 tons of paper. And, on September 30 an ISR storage room cleanout recycled 15 tons of paperback books. Good job!
• We had a good day! On Friday, September 25, our recycling truck collected 8,000 lbs. of mixed containers to be recycled. This is close to the one day record of 10,220 lbs. set in July of 1996. Keep up the good work.

The eXchange Files promote the re-use and exchange of small office supplies among University departments.

Waste Management Services does not guarantee the condition or availability of items listed. Submissions should be sent to: Recycling (get address) (38.103.63.61) or call 763-5539.

**The eXchange Files are now on the web.

Available: 44 cardboard magazine file boxes. 4" wide, 11.75" high, 9" in diameter. Contact Matt Healy, EnAct.
647-9189. Matt Healy (get address) (38.103.63.61)

Recycling Matters is produced by Grounds & Waste Management Services, a division of Plant Operations at the University of Michigan. Its purpose is to inform University staff, faculty and students of recycling, waste reduction and waste management issues that affect the campus community.

Editors: Sarah Archer and Leslie Witter. Waste Management Staff: Doug Fasing, Dept. Manager. Mike Gaubatz, Assistant Manager. Sarah Archer, Recycling Coordinator. Mike DeGraff, Brianne Haven, Joel Hoffman, Matt Kazmierski, and Leslie Witter, Recycling Interns. Jane Reading-Boyd, Operations Foreman. Dale Bucholz, Greg Boone, Harold Brown, and Tino Villarreal, Truck Operators. Kristin Miller, Administrative Associate. Paulette Grobbel, Support Staff. Mike Skora, Technology Information Specialist.

UM Waste Management Services, 1110 E. Huron Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104-1631. phone (734) 763-5539; fax (734) 764-9390; Recycling (get address) (38.103.63.61)

Recycle Phonebooks!

Remember to recycle old directories in the paper bins or the paper dumpsters at loading docks.