Tag: costs

Business Trash Audits

  • Plant manager of Anheuser-Busch points out the plastic labels of the beer bottles now being recycled. (Photo by Karen Kasler)

Chain restaurants and retailers often test
their latest services and products in Columbus, Ohio
before launching them nationwide. It’s one of the
nation’s big test markets. But ‘going green’ is not
a trend that’s going well. Karen Kasler reports
recycling rates are well below the national average.
But businesses in this key market are beginning to
show more interest:

Transcript

Chain restaurants and retailers often test
their latest services and products in Columbus, Ohio
before launching them nationwide. It’s one of the
nation’s big test markets. But ‘going green’ is not
a trend that’s going well. Karen Kasler reports
recycling rates are well below the national average.
But businesses in this key market are beginning to
show more interest:


Columbus often bills itself as the nation’s test market. It’s demographics are seen as a reflection
of the nation as a whole. But this national test market is not at the front of the curve when it
comes recycling and other ‘green practices.’ For example, many companies around the country
have going green in the last few years, but businesses in Columbus are just starting to test the
waters.


John Remy works for SWACO, the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio It operates the area’s
landfill. Remy has only recently noticed a sudden jump in the number of calls he’s getting every
day:


“The boss wants the business to go green, and so the employees are left to, how do I go
green? And so they call us and want to know, how do I go green? And how do I do it five
minutes before I called you?”


SWACO advises businesses to audit their waste — to dig into trash cans and dumpsters and see
how much paper, plastic, glass, cardboard, food and other material is there and can be
recycled. Some big corporations were already working on that. Columbus’ Anheuser-Busch
brewery is one of big brewer’s 12 plants nationwide. Plant manager Kevin Lee says “green beer”
is not just a St. Patrick’s Day thing here. He says it’s a way of doing business, from the way the
bottles are labeled:



“The backing off of these labels that are applied onto the Bud Light bottle, we recycle the
backing, and there was approximately 66,000 miles of backing a year that is plastic
backing that’s recycled.”


To the cans that fall off the filling lines and end up in hoppers:


“And we send those cans back to a recycling area where the cans are crushed, they’re
sent for aluminum recycling purposes…”


Lee says the idea is to save money and cut down on trash:


“Everything that is consumed off the line, whether it’s the waste beer or the
waste cans or the waste bottles or cardboard, we want to take those materials, treat them
or recycle them, so that we reduce our demand on the environment certainly, reduce our
costs, and that allows us to be the most responsible manufacturer we can be.”


Multi-million dollar automated operations can afford to smoothly snap new green technology
into their production lines, but it’s a little more hands-on in smaller companies and in non-profit
organizations.


Catholic priest David Gwinner did things the old-fashioned way at St. Paul’s parish just north of
Columbus. He stands by one of two eight-cubic-yard recycling bins outside the church offices.
And he says he started by sorting the trash on his own:


“Many days I would take the recycling, separate it and take it in my car.
Yes, in my Oldsmobile sitting over there and my dog, Margaret. And it started to be two,
three trips a day.”


After a few months of dumpster diving, Gwinner decided to organize the St. Paul’s staff in a
recycling effort. In the last year, Gwinner says everyone has gotten in on it – workers in the
administrative offices, guests in the meeting rooms, and the thousand kids in the school. Now,
the trash dumpsters are emptied three times a week instead of every day, which Gwinner says
has saved the parish 2,400 dollars over the last year. But Gwinner says it’s about more
than money. He’s preaching that this is a “partnership with creation,” and now his mission is to
get that message out to his 12,000 parishioners, many of whom own businesses:


“And if they had one or two or three pounds a day, times 12,000, times 365 days a year.
That tells the story of how huge… it’s a million tons a year that SWACO is receiving that’s
going into the ground. And they believe that a great percent of that is recyclable.”


A study a few years ago concluded 60 percent of commercial and residential trash is
recyclable, with paper and plastics the most common things thrown away. But even as
businesses are trying to take their bottom lines to zero when it comes to waste, their employees
may not be taking that attitude home. 88 percent of people in this test market town don’t
recycle. That number is nearly four times the stat from a recent Harris poll which shows the
national non-recycling average is 23 percent.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kasler.

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The HIDDEN COSTS OF &Quot;JUNK" MAIL

  • Mixed paper (including "junk" mail) gets trucked to recycling facilities like this one for recycling. First, it's unloaded in big piles, then pulled up a conveyor belt for sorting. (Photo courtesy of the City of Ann Arbor)

If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to a lot more waste:

Transcript

If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers
and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says
the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time
last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and
environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to
a lot more waste:


(Sound of squeaky mailbox opening)


Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like no one sends me letters anymore.
Which means my mailbox is all coupons and catalogs and pizza ads. That’s
not all bad, but honestly, most of it goes right to the shredder.


(Sound of shredder)


According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s a pretty common
reaction. The EPA points to one study showing that 44 percent of advertising mail
is thrown away without being opened or read.


And there’s a lot coming in. Last year, marketers and non-profit groups sent
about 101 billion pieces of mail. That’s billion with a “B.”


You might call this junk mail, but people in the business have a more
affectionate name for it: direct mail.


Pat Kachura is with the Direct Marketing Association. She says direct mail
yields a very high return on investment.


“Marketers yield about a 7 dollar return on investment for every dollar
spent on catalog marketing, and about 15, almost 16 dollars return for every
dollar spent on non-catalog direct mail marketing.”


The Association’s annual report says those hefty returns are based on an
average of just 2.7 percent of people responding to the ads they get in the
mail. Last year, that meant more than 600 billion dollars in sales.


So, it’s profitable for marketers to fill up your mailbox.


But critics say there are hidden costs that marketers aren’t paying. Some
of those costs also arrive in your mailbox in the form of a bill from your
city for solid waste disposal or recycling.


(Sound of paper pouring into bunker from conveyor belt)


If your city accepts mixed paper for recycling, your junk mail comes to a
facility like this one where it’s sorted and packaged into giant bales
weighing one ton each.


Bryan Weinert is the solid waste coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor,
Michigan.


“We end up getting about $70 a ton back in the value of the junk mail that’s
recycled. But remember it’s costing the city roughly $125 a ton or so to
pick it up.”


Weinert says his city is lucky because it has double the nation’s average
recycling rate. He says communities that don’t have a recycling program
bear even higher costs to dispose of mixed paper.


In this case, the bales of paper get made into Kellogg’s cereal boxes.


Tom Watson is with the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He says it’s
good when there’s a local market for recycled junk mail, but much of it
actually gets sent overseas.


“The unwanted mail, the mixed paper, generally has a very low value, that is often
shipped to China and it comes back to us in the kind of mottled packaging found on
the products that we buy from China. So, it comes full circle but it’s not
very efficient, all the costs of the transportation and recycling.”


Watson says it’d be much more efficient to cut back on all that mail in the
first place.


The Direct Marketing Association does offer an opt-out service. The group
says their members aren’t allowed to send any new mailings to people who
sign up. The fastest way to sign up is online, but you have to pay a $5
charge.


Tom Watson with the National Waste Prevention Coalition says that charge
might put people off. He says he’d like to see a national Do Not Mail list.
One that isn’t controlled by the industry.


“It’s very common in other countries, you can’t send mail to someone unless
they say in advance, yes I want to receive that mail from you.”


You might expect that the folks at the Direct Marketing Association aren’t
fans of the Do Not Mail list idea, but they’re not the only ones.


“What is our position on that? (laughs) I wouldn’t like that to occur.”


George Hurst is the brand manager of direct mail for the Postal Service.
It’s his job to get direct mailers to send more mail. That’s because it’s
the second largest source of revenue for the Postal Service, in the tens of
billions of dollars.


Hurst says new laws aren’t needed. Instead, he says marketers just need to
know their audiences.


“The ones that don’t do it too well, and just blanket the earth with a message,
God bless ’em, we love the postage. But you gotta know that if you’re
talking to someone who is say, 100 miles away, about coming to your
dry cleaners, you’re probably missing the mark.”


But critics say consumers deserve to have more say over the mail they bring
into their homes. They say marketers make so much money from the mail they
send… that for that small chance you might be interested in a coupon book or
sale notice, you shouldn’t have to pay the cost to throw it away or recycle
it.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Searching for E-Waste Solutions

  • Many people do not know what to do with old computers and equipment, so they end up in the trash.

If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of places to drop off your household’s old computer. But to prevent more of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:

Transcript

If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of
places to drop off your household’s old computer, but to prevent more
of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in
landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer
makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few
manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is
Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:


About a year ago, Dell helped set up and publicize a computer
recycling plant at a Goodwill Industries facility in Dell’s home city
of Austin.


(Sound of clunking)


Goodwill employees and volunteers sort through the hundreds of
boxes of computers and computer parts that are dropped off – at no
charge to the consumer – at the site. Newer computers are set aside
for repairs, and hard drive memories are erased. Older computers go
to a bench where workers like Paul take apart (or demanufacture)
them.


“I’m taking apart all the useable parts. Motherboard, power sources,
cards, ports, metal goes into bins, plastic goes into bins for
recycling and what not.”


(Sound of ambience switch)


Goodwill sells the reusable parts at its retail store elsewhere in the
building. Used LCD monitors, for example, go for as low as twenty
dollars.


Manager Christine Banks says some of the equipment is under
a 30-day Goodwill warranty. Other parts can be exchanged if the
customer isn’t satisfied. Banks says Goodwill is happy this computer-
recycling program makes a profit.


“Our operation does. However, there are 7 or 8 other Goodwills
throughout the country that do this that barely break even. We’re just
fortunate we have higher tech donations, a pool of employees with
more technology, it’s very tricky.”


Some states charge high disposal costs for unwanted computer parts,
which can contain potentially harmful chemicals. Those high costs can
make it difficult for a recycling program to get off the ground, but
environmental groups say the fast-growing pile of circuit boards,
monitors, and plastic parts can leach poisons like lead, mercury, and
cadmium into the environment.


They say small-scale projects like the one in Austin have to be part of a
broader effort to keep electronic waste out of the nation’s landfills. That
effort could include government mandates forcing manufacturers to
safely dispose of old products.


Robin Schneider is with the Austin office of the National Computer
Takeback Campaign.


“So, to really deal with the environmental problems of millions of
pounds of toxins, we’re gonna need something bigger than this. This is a
piece of it…and gonna need lot of pieces of it.”


Schneider says she’s encouraged that some Midwest states are
looking into manufacturer takeback programs. She acknowledges that
recycling may drive up the cost of new computers, but she also says
manufacturers may start redesigning computers so that it’s more
profitable for the companies to take them back.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

The Cost of Ending Ocean Shipping on the Great Lakes

For years, many environmentalists have wanted to stop ocean-going ship traffic on the Great Lakes. That’s because vessels traveling from the ocean to the Lakes sometimes carry invasive species. But opponents call the industry a vital part of the economy. A new study paid for by the Joyce Foundation questions how vital that industry really is. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

For years, many environmentalists have wanted to stop ocean-going ship
traffic on the Great Lakes. That’s because vessels traveling from the
ocean to the Lakes sometimes carry invasive species, but opponents call
the industry a vital part of the economy. A new study paid for by the
Joyce Foundation questions how vital that industry really is. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:


The study tackled this question:


How much would it hurt the economy if we end ocean shipping on the
Great Lakes?


The report suggests transportation prices would rise about fifty-five
million dollars per year.


Co-author James Roach says ending ocean ship traffic will cost money,
but keeping it could cost more.


“One has to look at that in terms of, for example, the costs of invasives.
You know, and if that’s 3, 4, or 5 hundred million dollars a year, then
policy makers are gonna have to take that into consideration.”


Independent transportation experts who’ve read the study question some
of its methodology.


For example, it assumes prices for alternatives, such as rail, would
remain constant, but some experts say it’s possible those costs would rise,
making the transition away from ocean shipping more expensive.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.


“Host Tag: In the interest of full disclosure, the Joyce Foundation also
provides funding to the GLRC.”

Related Links

Computer Mapping for Endangered Butterfly

  • The Karner blue butterfly is an endangered species. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are several groups in the region working to protect and restore the endangered Karner blue butterfly. Now these efforts could be helped by a new computer mapping and statistical modeling technique. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has more:

Transcript

There are several groups in the region working to protect and restore the
endangered Karner blue butterfly. Now these efforts could be helped by a
new computer mapping and statistical modeling technique. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has more:


Habitat maps for endangered species can be based on broad general
estimates. But some scientists hope a combination of computer
software and data such as soil type and vegetation will lead to
more accurate information on where the Karner Blue butterfly lives.


David Mladenoff is a professor of Forest Ecology at the University of
Wisconsin – Madison. He says having a better idea of the butterfly’s
habitat might save companies money on things like surveying costs.


“In other words, if they say we’re planning on doing work on this utility
right away or potentially harvest this area of forest, is this even
a place we have to be concerned about for the Karner Blue butterfly
occuring?”


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a state agency, and some power
companies are funding a computer mapping project in Wisconsin.
Scientists say the same technique could be used in other states.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Sewage Blending Stirs Up Debate

  • Many environmentalists fear the practice of sewage blending would become more routine if a new EPA policy is enacted. (Photo by M. Vasquez)

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:

Transcript

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:


(sound of water in sewer)


Some sanitary sewers are tied in with storm sewers. So when there’s a big rainstorm, or when there’s a fast snowmelt, all that water can inundate some sewage treatment plants. To tackle this problem, some treatment plants have adopted a practice known as “blending.” The excess sewage is re-routed around the slower parts of the treatment plant. The dirty water is then mixed with the water that’s been cleaned. It’s sometimes given a shot of chlorine, and then released into creeks, rivers, and lakes.


Kurt Heise oversees the operation of a sewage treatment plant on the Detroit River. He says the practice of blending is necessary in order to keep the plant from being overwhelmed.


“When you have a wet weather event, an extreme wet weather event, if we were to allow all of that combined water in through the normal process the treatment process would be ruined.”


Sewage blending has been around for a long time. To plant operators, it’s a necessary step in handling large amounts of dirty water. But to some people, blending is not seen as a good option. They want the practice to stop.


Instead, they say, cities should invest in their systems to make sure they can fully treat all the water that comes to the plant. Kurt Heise says, if his plant were required to do this, it wouldn’t make sense economically.


“It would almost result in doubling the size of our plant and spending just untold amounts of dollars for an event only happens a few times a year.”


Sewage treatment plant operators say you have to weigh the costs and the benefits before spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expanding the treatment plants. The decision of whether or not to allow blending has been left up to state and local regulators. But recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has weighed in on the subject. And ever since they suggested new guidelines for allowing blending, environmentalists have been critical of their plan. Mike Shriberg is the Great Lakes advocate for the Public Interest Research Group. It’s an environmental consumer activist organization.


Shriberg says the draft blending policy, the way it’s written now, is too broad. And will allow the practice of blending to become routine.


“Our fear is that when you’ve got a treatment plant that uses blending, they’re never going to upgrade to full treatment sewage. And so if a treatment plant is allowed to blend they’re not going to go up to full treatment capacity they have no incentive to do that anymore. It’s sort of the cheap way out.”


Sewage treatment operators say blending is better than seeing the raw sewage overflow into waterways. And they say it’s better than spending large sums of money to fix a problem that only occurs a few times a year. But critics say the EPA doesn’t have a good handle on how often blending is used, and what kind of health risks are associated with the practice.


Some initial studies have been done on blended sewage and how it might affect public health. Joan Rose is a water microbiologist at Michigan State University. She’s written a report on the health risks associated with blended sewage.


“So what I found was that if people were actually swimming in the water and there was a discharge of a blended sewage upstream, that their risk of getting sick, actually getting sick with a virus or a parasite was about a hundred times greater – when there was a blended discharge as opposed to if the water was fully treated.”


Rose says some of these viruses, such as Hepatitis-A, are highly contagious. At this point, there are no good estimates on how many people get sick from blended sewage each year. It’s never been studied, so the impact of blending on public health is unclear. Ben Grumbles is the Assistant Administrator for water at the EPA. He says the EPA is considering the billions of dollars at stake in expanding the nation’s sewer treatment plants versus the risk to public health.


“What we’re trying to do is to clarify what’s legal and what isn’t legal and to recognize the economic realities that sewage teatment plants face across the country in terms of their infrastructure needs, but foremost and above all what leaves the facility has to meet Clean Water Act permit limits.”


But the Clean Water Act permit limits don’t measure all the viruses, bacteria, and parasites found in blended sewage. And so some environmentalists and scientists say meeting the limits doesn’t necessarily mean protecting public health. Grumbles says officials are still reviewing the tens of thousands of comments they received after releasing the draft blending policy.


He says he doesn’t know what the final rule will look like, or if they’ll issue a rule at all. One thing is likely, if the policy is finalized the way it’s written now, it’s expected that environmental groups will take the EPA to court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2005’s GREAT LAKES ISSUES

  • The Great Lakes is the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. Preservation and usage of the Lakes is a hot issue for 2005. (Photo courtesy of michigan.gov)

This coming year will likely see some major policy decisions regarding the Great Lakes. Because the lakes stretch out along eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada, getting all the governments to agree on issues is a long and sometimes trying process. But… those involved think 2005 will be the year that some real progress on Great Lakes issues will be made. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham recently talked with the Chair of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission, Dennis Schornack. The IJC deals with disputes and advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on issues regarding the Great Lakes:

Transcript

This coming year likely will see some major policy decisions regarding the Great Lakes. Because the Lakes stretch out along eight states in the U.S. and two provinces in Canada, getting all the governments to agree on issues is a long and sometimes trying process. But those involved think 2005 will be the year that some real progress on Great Lakes issues will be made. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham recently talked with the chair of the U.S. Section of the International Joint Commission, Dennis Schornack. The IJC deals with disputes and advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on issues regarding the Great Lakes:


The International Joint Commission and the Government Accountability Office both have been critical of the U.S. government for not finding clear leadership on Great Lakes issues. Different agencies sometimes find their efforts overlap or conflict with others. At times, it seems there’s no organized effort to restore the health of the Great Lakes. Dennis Schornack says he thinks things were starting to get better because recently appointed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Mike Leavitt took a real interest in the Great Lakes. But now Leavitt is leaving to become the new Health and Human Services chief.


“It’s going to be hard to beat the enthusiasm of Mike Leavitt. He spent literally about fifty percent of his time as EPA Administrator in the Great Lakes throughout. He was everywhere this past summer. But it does fall to the new administrator, whomever he or she may be; but in the meantime, the governors and mayors are proceeding forward on the priorities that they set over a year ago, and fleshing those out into very tight kinds of recommendations.”


Countless studies and reports on the Great Lakes point out one of the biggest threats to the lakes is invasive species. Those are foreign critters such as zebra mussels and round gobies that hitchhike in the ballast water of cargo ships, or are introduced unintentionally. Often the invasives damage the native fish, plants, and ecosystems of the Great Lakes. Nothing has been done to effectively stop importing the invasives, and some have gone so far as to suggest that the St. Lawrence Seaway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean should be closed. The IJC’s Dennis Schornack says he’s hopeful that we’ll soon see laws that will do more to help prevent invasive species from getting into the Lakes.


“In the United States, at least, there is pending legislation that has been pending for over two years now called the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. This legislation is overdue. It’s time for Congress to act on it. And in the ’05 legislative Congressional year, it’s time for them to act. And that’s the place where the standards get set, the authority gets established and where all of the rubber really hits the road. Now, that’s just in the United States. Bi-nationally, because the Great Lakes are a shared resource, the IJC, that I’m the chair of the U.S. section, has continued to advocate cooperation and collaboration between the two countries in terms of at least setting a common standard, a common rule, common regulation on the Great Lakes. Because, obviously, setting it on one side of the boundary line doesn’t do any good if the other side doesn’t follow.”


Another issue that’s recieved a lot of attention in the Great Lakes region recently is water diversion. A document called Annex 2001 tackles the issue of how much water can be used or withdrawn from the Lakes. The various state governors and province premiers put together draft agreements for public comment. Schornack says there’s been a huge response, and a lot of it hasn’t been positive.


“They recieved, I think, over ten-thousand public comments. And there is differing viewpoint, a growing difference between the view taken in Canada and the view taken in the United States on this effort. Canada, the province of Ontario, has come out and point-blank opposed the existing documents. There are concerns in Canada that this is just some kind of a ruse to somehow allow diversions of the Great Lakes waters to occur. I’m not part of that viewpoint, to tell you the truth. What’s being done right now and what will happen in 2005 is that the comments are being digested, we’ll see new draft documents come out from the governors and premiers and hopefully begin the process making those agreements stick.”


Schornack says 2005 will also see some important reports on the economic costs of invasive species. Studies on the logistics of shipping, cargo ship traffic and alternative freight haulers and design plans that look at the total cost of shipping – including the infrastructure costs and the environmental damage caused by invasive species. It should be an interesting year for the Great Lake if Congress moves on key issues, and then finds money to make the Great Lakes more sound.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

City Votes to Reduce Toxic Chemicals

  • Purchases and disposal of many common office supplies can lead to toxic chemicals escaping into the environment. The City of Buffalo has found a way to curb some of this leaching.

Buffalo has become the first city in the Great Lakes region
to pass a law aimed at curbing the amount of toxic chemicals entering the environment. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports… officials hope to accomplish this goal by changing their buying habits:

Transcript

Buffalo has become the first city in the Great Lakes region to pass a law aimed at curbing the amount of toxic chemicals entering the environment. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports, officials hope to accomplish this goal by changing their buying habits:


Every day, cities buy tons of office supplies and other products containing toxic chemicals. When these products are discarded, they eventually break down and sometimes leach toxins into the soil and water. The City of Buffalo recently adopted a policy to reduce purchasing of products containing Persistent Bio-Accumulative Toxins, or PBTs. But the decision could put more fiscal strain on a city that’s already in crisis. University at Buffalo Chemistry Professor Joe Gardella helped push for the law. He says a university study convinced the city it could both be fiscally and environmentally responsible.


“It doesn’t create additional exprenses, and, in fact, if one takes a long-term view of the fiscal impact, especially on the issue of creating markets for the recyclables that you’re trying to sell, there can be some really solid benefits to this,” said Gardella.


Under the new law, officials can only pay ten percent more for an alternative product. They say other costs will be reduced by eliminating some unneccessary purchases.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

“Smart Meters” Installed to Save Energy

A growing number of electricity customers in Ontario are
using so-called smart meters, which will charge more for electricity
used during peak hours of the day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A growing number of electricity customers in Ontario are using so-called smart
meters, which
will charge more for electricity used during peak hours of the day. The Great Lakes
Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Right now, electricity customers in Ontario pay the same amount to run their
dishwasher at 6 p.m.
– during peak hours – as they do at ten in the morning. But it costs the province
more to produce
that power during peak times.


The heavy demand is a strain on Ontario’s aging electricity plants. So, the
province plans to
install smart electricity meters in every home and business over the next five years.


Ted Gruetzner is with the Ontario Ministry of Energy.


“It allows people to track their energy use depending on the time of day and monitor
when they’re
using power so they can turn their lights off at certain times or use their ovens or
dryers at
different times of day.”


That’s because electricity used during peak hours will cost consumers more. Ontario
is the first
jurisdiction in North America to use this system.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

New Insulating Material Could Save Energy

  • From lighter, thinner ski boots and other cold-weather clothing... (Photo by Adam Fowler)

A new insulating material could cut down on home heating
costs and save on materials in construction. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover tells us about Aerogels:

Transcript

A new insulating material could cut down on home heating costs and save
on construction materials. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover
tells us about Aerogels:


Aerogels look like frozen smoke, and feel like styrofoam. Up to ninety-nine
percent of an aerogel is empty space. This makes it an excellent insulator. Last
year, the first aerogel jacket hit the market. And aerogel footwear inserts are used
by the U.S. military and the Canadian National Ski
Team. Ed Hogan is the marketing manager of Aspen Aerogels.


“Everybody knows how much cold feet can spoil an outing, right? And this stuff
is so thin, you can put it in a shoe or put it in a boot, and you hardly notice it.”


Because they’re new, aerogels are still expensive relative to other materials. The
company says once they gain in popularity and the price goes down, they could be used
as insulation in walls and the clear form could be used in windows. This could cut down
dramatically on heating costs. And, because aerogels are so thin, the company says
houses could be built with less lumber. That’s because less lumber would be needed
to make room for aerogel insulation.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

Related Links