Tag: recycle

Cradle to Cradle Design

  • Used resources can be remade into all kinds of things. These street signs were made into switchplates. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

The people who make everyday items – from cars to chairs to cell phones – attractive and functional are called industrial designers. Now a new generation of industrial designers is learning how to create products that are environmentally friendly as well. That makes their jobs a bit more challenging. Ann Dornfeld reports:

Transcript

The people who make everyday items – from cars to chairs to cell phones – attractive and functional are called industrial designers. Now a new generation of industrial designers is learning how to create products that are environmentally friendly as well. That makes their jobs a bit more challenging. Ann Dornfeld reports:


A lot of the things you buy have a pretty limited life cycle. Think about it. Before you buy a product, it uses up raw materials, then you use it for a while, then it ends up in a garbage dump. But that doesn’t have to be its fate.


A group of industrial design students at Western Washington University was given this challenge: create attractive, useful products that are also completely recyclable, reusable or biodegradable. On top of that, they had to use waste that would have ended up in the dump.


Rachel Bjarnasson explains what’s known as “closed-loop” design:


“Instead of a product life cycle and a designer’s job ending with that product when the product is at the end of its useful life, that that is just a new material that can be reused and turned into a new product.”


This sustainable design principle has caught on in Europe. There, household appliance manufacturers are required to take back old dishwashers and clothes dryers to reuse their components. U.S. factories are adopting closed-loop systems, too, as a way to save money on raw materials and benefit the environment.


One of the first lessons the students learned was that in closed-loop design, it’s not enough to use recyclable materials. You have to think about how you attach one material to another.


“If you have a recyclable material like an aluminum bonded to a plastic that’s non-recyclable, suddenly the recyclable component is no longer recyclable.”


Bjarnasson says they had to avoid using strong glues for that reason. And also because the adhesives can release toxic fumes.


The students also had to figure out where to get their raw materials.


Seth Tucker wanted to make bracelets out of disposable chopsticks.


“I found that between Japan and China, one billion pairs of chopsticks are thrown away every year. They’re taking down whole forests just for chopsticks!”


He asked local Asian restaurants whether he could install chopsticks recycling bins to collect enough for his project.


“Some restaurants, it was kinda funny, they gave me this kinda look like ‘you’re crazy, I would never give you used chopsticks.’ But it was really cool, ’cause other places were like, ‘oh yeah, totally, we’re definitely cool with the idea.'”


Tucker sanitized the chopsticks he’d collected, cut them into pieces and sandblasted them into what look like little driftwood beads. He strung them into bracelets along with natural turquoise and antique African trade beads.


One student turned newsprint into biodegradable flower pots.


Another made used-up retail gift cards into colorful luggage tags.


Rachel Bjarnasson challenged herself to use fabric scraps that she usually throws away in her job as a seamstress. She stitched strips of silk into baby booties, and lined them with scraps of fleece she got from a local glove manufacturer. Then she cushioned the soles with leftover carpet padding from a flooring company.


“And so all of this was materials that would’ve been thrown out, and I turned them into little striped baby booties.”


Several stores agreed to carry the products. One of them was Goods for the Planet in Seattle. Suzanne O’Shea is the co-owner.


“We were thrilled to do it because one of our goals is to find products as close to home as possible and support the local economy.”


The students’ products were a hit with her customers. O’Shea says some even sold out right away – like the chopsticks bracelets.


And sushi rollers made from stainless steel bicycle spokes flew off the shelves.


“And a lot of chefs that have come in and people that make sushi at home have really been impressed by this design because it has more weight than the standard bamboo sushi rollers.”


And that’s the idea. Student Rachel Bjarnasson says they learned the ideal sustainable product is at least as attractive and useful as the competition.


“You still need to make a product that looks beautiful and has good tactile sensation and is something that people ultimately want to buy. Even if it has the best of intentions in saving the environment, it won’t do its job if it’s not something that people want or need.”


The students say they’ll try to integrate the closed-loop design principles they’ve learned into all of their future products. They don’t want anything they design to ever end up in the trash.


For the Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Drumming Up a Green Outlook

  • The Junkyard Symphony warms the crowd with their beats. They say recycling even a little goes a long way. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

It takes a keen eye to see the value in an old hubcap, a dented bucket or a broken bicycle horn. But when you’re searching for musical instruments, the junkyard can be an inspiration. Karen Kelly has the story:

Transcript

It takes a keen eye to see the value in an old hubcap, a dented bucket or a broken bicycle horn. But when you’re searching for musical instruments, the junkyard can be an inspiration. Karen Kelly has the story:

It’s a winter weekend festival in Ottawa, Canada and it’s freezing. And there are a few things you can count on – ice skating, ice sculptures, maple taffy… but bongo drums?

(sound of drums fades in)

As you make your way along a crowded path, you catch sight of the band, and you realize…these guys aren’t playing bongos.


They’re playing on recycling bins. And they’ve got paint buckets hanging on either side of them. Those bottle caps taped to the top turn them into snare drums. And there are PVC pipes sticking out of the bin with metal bowls on top. Those would be the cymbals. And – believe it or not – they sound really good.

(drumming)

They’re called Junkyard Symphony.

Two guys, dressed in khaki-green jumpsuits, playing on instruments they made themselves. Jonny Olsen is the founder of Junkyard Symphony.

“Usually, what I do is go to the junkyard and look through the stuff and take my stick and bang on stuff and experiment with different sounds. I get a lot of ideas for bits in the show just from the props that we find. Just use your imagination, basically.”

Like a beat-up Cheer detergent box. During the show, Olsen picks a little kid out of the audience to hold that box up in the air. And the audience does what it’s told.

(Olsen leads crowd in cheering)

Olsen started Junkyard Symphony about 20 years ago, when he was in high school. But what started as an Earth Day project became a summer job that put him through college. After graduation, he tried to stop, but couldn’t.

“Once I was done, I had so many people calling for the show, and I’ve never really been able to stop it, beacuse I’ve had so many people calling. I wasn’t able to move on to anything else. They wouldn’t let me.” (laughs)


What really gets the audience going are the tricks. There are plungers juggled between the legs. And the audience is invited to throw tennis balls at a tube attached to Olsen’s forehead.


One of Olsen’s favorite tricks is to place a kid on top of a milk crate, hands together, straight up over their head. The drum rolls, along with hundreds of mittens.

The kid’s looking nervous, and Olsen – standing behind him – starts tossing hula hoops at him. Kind of like human horseshoes.


That’s what attracts people like Joe Vinchec on a freezing cold day.

“I find them very creative and hilarious, actually. Quite funny.”


Olsen says he’s got three goals for his show. He wants to expand it beyond Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto – where they play now.


He wants people to have fun.


And he wants people to think about reusing and recycling.


Some people have said he should move on to bigger issues, like climate change. Recycling is old news. But in Ottawa, where Olsen lives – and in many other cities – they’re running out of space for their garbage.


That’s why he argues everyday actions do matter.


“Every little thing you do adds up. Like when we first started Junkyard Symphony, we made our money on the street, by someone chucking in a quarter and eventually, all those quarters added up to my tuition. So if everybody just did little things, it would add up to having a cleaner environment.”


(sound back up)


Olsen blows into a homemade didgeridoo, and aims it at the nearest kid. (audience laughs)

It’s the traditional Australian instrument, but this one is made from a long piece of PVC piping.


Olsen doesn’t talk much during his show. And he definitely doesn’t preach. He believes if you inspire positive feelings – if you get them to laugh – you’re more likely to inspire people to take positive action, as well.

For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Old Stuff Gets New Life

  • Tennis ball art made of 160 balls. Some of the balls can be moved around in order to create different formations. (Photo courtesy of Britten Stringwell)

Everyone has stuff. Probably too much stuff. Stuff you don’t use anymore, stuff that’s just
gathering dust in a box somewhere. Sure, you could recycle it. Or, as reporter Jennifer
Guerra discovered, you could turn some of that stuff into art:

Transcript

Everyone has stuff. Probably too much stuff. Stuff you don’t use anymore, stuff that’s just
gathering dust in a box somewhere. Sure, you could recycle it. Or, as reporter Jennifer
Guerra discovered, you could turn some of that stuff into art:


Vivienne Armentrout has only the essentials in her house. A table, some chairs, a
sideboard. Maybe a vase with fresh cut flowers from her garden. But that’s it. No clutter,
no knick knacks. Armentrout doesn’t like to have stuff lying around her house. So she
gets rid of it. But she doesn’t just throw it out or recycle it:


“The thing is, it’s easy to recycle. You just load up everything take it down to drop off
center and put it in the appropriate bin. And that’s okay for material recovery. But a lot of
objects have a real use still and that would be a waste. ”


Like fabric, for example. Armentrout says there’s nothing inherently wrong with
recycling old neck ties or curtain remnants. But if you go that route, the material will
probably just end up being turned into stuffing for seat cushions:


“But I think making them into a beautiful piece of art is a much better use.”




Now you might be thinking to yourself, okay, sounds like a cool idea…but I’m not an
artist! That’s ok, you don’t have to be. That’s where someone like Britten Stringwell
comes in. Stringwell calls herself a…


“A creative, inspirational doer…or artist.”


Stringwell and Armentrout live in the same town. But they never met until Armentrout
read an article about Stringwell in a local paper. Stringwell had some art work on display
at a coffee shop, so the paper was doing a little bio on her. When Armentrout read that
Britten Stringwell used recycled materials in her pieces, Armentrout immediately went to
work. She went through boxes of stuff she had in her attic and in her basement. Armentrout
invited Stringwell over to her house and together, the two sifted through old metal gears, antique
furniture knobs and wooden beads.


Some of the items Stringwell took home with her. Some she didn’t. Stringwell’s quick to
point out that she doesn’t just take anything that’s handed to her:


“I don’t like to keep collecting things, but if I can help to inspire other people who
would use them, too, is really important.”


I think that’s key to understanding what drives Stringwell to do what she does. She likes to make connections, she likes to form relationships with people.


People – strangers – will read or hear about Stringwell and they’ll invite her into their
house. Virtual strangers! Sometimes they have her over for tea, maybe a light snack. And
then, they just talk. Mostly, about all the stuff they’ve got in their basement and their attic,
and it’s those stories – the stories BEHIND the items and not the actual items themselves – that
Stringwell says inspires her the most:


“More recently, I guess I’ve been interested in not talking so much when I enter a space,
but kind of seeing where the person leads me. And just kind of finding out what’s
important to them or what story comes up and why does this object inspire me more
or them more…”




For example, that’s how Stringwell discovered someone’s box of old tennis balls. An
older woman invited Stringwell into her home one day. The two walked through her
basement, where there were boxes of stuff everywhere. When they came to the box of
tennis balls, the older woman went on and on about her love of the game, and about how she
and her partner used to play tennis all the time when they were younger.


So, Stringwell took those tennis balls home with her and she gave them new life. She put
them in an art piece. Tennis balls that otherwise would have stayed in a box in a
basement or ended up in a landfill somewhere. Stringwell created an interactive composition of
sorts. So within the composition, the balls can be arranged by the viewer to form different
shapes and patterns:


“What’s important is that it becomes this new, physical game. What was important
to them about it. They might not be as physical as they were when they were
younger and playing tennis, but now they can take these things out and play a
matching game and they will change it around and recreate it.”


Of course not everyone is a creative inspirational doer, like Britten Stringwell. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reduce, reuse and recycle. That part’s easy. Everybody gets that. And maybe, while you’re at it, you’ll start to look at all the stuff around you in a different way. Maybe you’ll find your own way to recreate, repurpose and reimagine.


For the Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

E-Waste Polluting Overseas

  • Exposed to toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury, workers stay at the scrap yards for the $130-a-month pay. (photo by Ted Land)

At your home, chances are your TV, computer and other electronic gear were made
overseas. That’s because it’s cheaper to make them there. And it’s cheaper to get rid of old
electronics overseas. Someday, your old cell phone or CD player might end up right back
where it started: in China. Ted Land visited a Chinese city where electronic waste, or e-waste, is shipped by the thousands of tons. Pollution from that waste is threatening the
health of people who live there:

Transcript

At your home, chances are your TV, computer and other electronic gear were made
overseas. That’s because it’s cheaper to make them there. And it’s cheaper to get rid of old
electronics overseas. Someday, your old cell phone or CD player might end up right back
where it started: in China. Ted Land visited a Chinese city where electronic waste , or e-
waste, is shipped by the thousands of tons. Pollution from that waste is threatening the
health of people who live there:


The city of Taizhou is in eastern China. It’s an industrial port city. A lot of the people
who travel here are here on business. Ships loaded with new products are often headed
for the United States. But it’s not just what leaves this city that makes business boom…
it’s also what’s coming in:


“I know it’s polluted here but it’s not a big deal. The most important thing is my
children, that’s the reason why I found work here.”


Liu Qinzhen works at this Taizhou scrap plant. It’s the final stop for some of the nearly
4,000 tons of scrap and e-waste that enters the port each day. Liu is one of hundreds of
workers who squat under an outdoor pavilion picking apart old circuit boards and wires.
She works 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, earning about 130 dollars a month.


The work is dangerous. She and the other workers are exposed to harmful chemicals
from e-waste such as lead and mercury. The 23-year-old moved here for this job because
she needed to support her two kids:


“I used to work in a shoe factory but then I had a baby and it’s not convenient to have a
baby there so I moved here even though the pay is the same. I come from the countryside.
You can’t earn money on a farm.”


The plant where she works is considered safer than scrapping these materials in the
countryside where families work in their front yards and in their homes. They melt
circuit boards and burn wires to extract bits of valuable copper and gold.


Environmental organizations have documented evidence that what’s left over after the
valuable metals are retrieved is dumped into local rivers and streams:


(Land:) “I noticed when we arrived they shut down the other door of that other shop?


“They are doing the same kind of e-waste, but they are afraid of being discovered by
others.”


Afraid, says Taizhou resident Chen Yijun because what they’re doing is illegal. Chinese
law forbids the import of e-waste, yet piles of foreign electronics litter the countryside
and pour into scrap plants daily.


Yijun is a teacher at Taizhou #1 High School, where students are concerned about what
the e-waste industry is doing to their environment. They’ve been testing the water in
local streams, looking for signs of harmful chemicals:


On this day they draw several gallons from a stream. The banks are littered with piles of
electrical cable. Chen Zhengyan has been working on the project for years:


“The frogs here are different from frogs in other places because sometimes they have
extra limbs. We are sure the pollution is from e-waste because in this area there is no
other industry.”


Chen and her colleagues say this pollution is harmful to people, too. They tell local
government officials such as Liang Xiaoyong that something has to be done to improve
the situation. But, Liang says there’s only so much the government can do to combat an
illegal industry that so many residents make their living off of. He says cutting off the
imports is difficult because sometimes e-waste is hidden in with other scrap. He doesn’t
deny the waste industry is a big business here:


This industry generates a lot of tax money for us in the form of tariffs. So, if this industry
doesn’t exist, the Taizhou harbor won’t survive.


Jim Puckett is coordinator of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle based group that
confronts toxic trade issues around the world. He says it’s not that the Chinese
government is unwilling to stop imports, it’s simply unable to stop them.


“They’ve banned the import, the problem is they can’t control that flow, it’s just coming at
them container load after container load through various ports and they can’t possibly check every
single one.”


American waste is literally fueling the fires burning electronics that dot the countryside in
China. And many of the original owners of this gear had taken it to be recycled, and
thought they’d done the right thing. But, often it ends up on a ship, headed for scrap
yards overseas.


About seven thousand miles away from Taizhou, practically the other side of the globe,
there’s a warehouse in Springfield, Illinois stacked with old electronic gear.


The Illinois State Department of Central Management Services, or CMS, disposes of old
state property, including old copy machines, computers, and monitors. In 2005, CMS
was contacted by the Basel Action Network with some disturbing information. The
group was finding State of Illinois computers dumped in developing countries around the
world. Curtis Howard is manager of CMS state and federal surplus property:


“It hit me pretty hard, the fact that, not realizing, you know I always look at it, these guys
were here, they come in, they bid on our property, you know I’m maximizing the return on
the state’s investment, I’m doing a good job, I never really thought about the tail end of
the dragon.”


Basel Action Network coordinator Jim Puckett says if the Chinese are unable to stop the
imports, then it’s up to the United States to control what they export:


Other countries have laws forbidding it, laws controlling it, but in the United States, we
don’t even have a law to control this export.


The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that have not signed and ratified the Basel
Convention, an international treaty that bans hazardous waste exports. That means if
anything is going to be done to stop electronic waste from polluting countries overseas,
it’s going to be up to the States to take action.


It starts with buying electronics from companies that make products that are more easily
recycled, and ends with making sure old electronic gear is getting into the hands of
responsible recyclers who don’t simply ship the e-waste to scrap yards overseas.


For the Environment Report, I’m Ted Land.

Related Links

Usps Earth-Friendly Packaging

  • The Postal Service is launching a program to use more recycled and environmentally-friendly materials in its packaging. (photo by Lester Graham)

The US Postal Service says it has made its packaging materials more
environmentally friendly. Rebecca Williams reports the Post Office
says the packaging uses fewer resources and is more easily recyclable:

Transcript

The US Postal Service says it has made its packaging materials more
environmentally friendly. Rebecca Williams reports the Post Office
says the packaging uses fewer resources and is more easily recyclable:


The Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of boxes and envelopes
a year. The Service worked with a consulting firm to redesign the
packages, down to the inks and adhesives.


Anita Bizzotto is the chief marketing officer for the Postal Service:


“It was actually quite a big undertaking – we worked with 10 vendors,
200 suppliers and we evaluated 1400 individual ingredients and all
component materials of packaging products.”


But some critics of the Postal Service say the agency still has a way
to go. They want the Postal Service to stop promoting advertising
mail… you might call it junk mail. All those flyers and catalogs are
the Service’s second largest source of revenue.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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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

A Mad Dash for Trash

  • Penn State is luring people to its annual "Trash to Treasure" event with gimmicks such as going for the "most people disguised as Groucho Marx" record. (Photo courtesy of Penn State University)

Each spring when college students leave their dorms, they leave behind tons of unwanted furniture, rugs, and other stuff that just didn’t make the cut for the trip back home. At one time, it all would’ve ended up in a landfill. In recent years, some universities have been sorting out the usable items and holding huge yard sales. The GLRC’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan took her pocketbook and her microphone to one of those big sales:

Transcript

Each spring when college students leave their dorms, they leave behind tons of unwanted
furniture, rugs, and other stuff that just didn’t make the cut for the trip back home. At one time,
it all would’ve ended up in a landfill. In recent years, some universities have been sorting out the
usable items and holding huge yard sales. The GLRC’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan took her
pocketbook and her microphone to one of those big sales:


“Welcome to the fifth annual Trash to Treasure sale. Let the excitement begin.”


At 7:30 a.m., the gates to Beaver football stadium at Penn State are hoisted and thousands of
people run through six metal corrals. It’s a mad dash for CD players, stuffed animals, and other
remnants of college. Sixty-six tons… of stuff. What’s with kids leaving behind all this, and that
$215 chichi bronze silk purse – with tag intact?


“No one wants to take it home. I mean to fit all that stuff in a car – it’s awful. It’s really hard to
do. So I mean if you can’t fit it you might as well leave it and leave it for somebody else.”


Erin Horning is a college student herself. She’s here for the fourth year in a row.


“I was a freshman in college this past year so I came here to get all my college stuff from the
students that already left like irons, and oh, furniture….”


Penn State’s Environmental Strategies Team started the Trash to Treasure sale to keep leftover
lumber and coffee mugs out of the waste stream. Other major colleges around the country are
following suit, including Notre Dame and West Virginia University. Penn State spokesman Paul
D. Ruskin says it also saves the school 43-hundred dollars in hauling costs.

“We had a problem. We had 60 to 70 tons of usable material left behind. And the solution which
we found was to have this massive sale and to have the items donated to this sale. And to have
United Way take over and manage the sale.”


The charity brings in 300 volunteers who sort sale items over a few weeks. Bethany Heim
volunteered for 19 shifts. She and her husband are also first in line for the sale, having arriving
around midnight.


(sound of people in stadium)


“I came for a vacuum. It started as a joke when I started volunteering here three weeks ago.
And now I found THE vacuum.”

Heim says that besides keeping trash out of landfills, the sale benefits the community in other
ways.


“They have stuff put away for Katrina victims. I’m sure some of it will make its way to the flood
victims in New England. And just that it’s not on the sides of the streets – ’cause driving
through town when you see all the furniture from the college kids on the sides of the streets.”


Penn State tries to bring more customers in every year. The school’s Paul D. Ruskin admits that
the county market for box fans has already been saturated. So now it’s trying to generate
enthusiasm with gimmicks. Like this year’s attempt to break the record for the most people
wearing Groucho Marx masks. The effort fell 138 people shy. Still, the United Way netted 45,000 dollars. And as for Bethany Heim…


“I got my vacuum!”


And with happy customers like that, universities are starting to realize that selling all the college
student leftovers is good P.R. as well as just good sense.


For the GLRC, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

Related Links

A MAD DASH FOR TRASH (Short Version)

When college students head home for the summer, the unmatched dishware and stuffed animals that filled dorms often become trash, but a number of schools are turning stadiums into sale grounds and hawking the remnants of college life. The GLRC’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan has more:

Transcript

When college students head home for the summer, the unmatched dishware and stuffed animals
that filled dorms often become trash, but a number of schools are turning stadiums into sale
grounds and hawking the remnants of college life. The GLRC’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan has
more:


When college lets out, dumpsters get overwhelmed with tons of students’ belongings, but not at
a few major universities. Five years ago, Penn State started getting students to donate their
goods. The school invited the local United Way to sort area rugs and shoes, to run a sale and
to reap the profits. Notre Dame and West Virginia University followed suit.


Paul D. Ruskin is a Penn State spokesman.


“It is a solution that has no downside. It keeps things out of the landfill. It keeps down Penn
State operating costs. It makes nice items available to families at a good price. And it helps a
charitable organization.”


It’s also a big draw. More than five-thousand people attended Penn State’s event this year.
Other universities are reporting similar turnouts.


For the GLRC, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

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Easing the Ash Borer’s Financial Bite

  • Homeowner Frank Wydra watches as logs from 16 of his ash trees get turned into lumber. All of the ash trees close to his house had to be cut down after they became infested with emerald ash borers. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Homeowners and cities are losing many of their big, beautiful shade trees. An invasive insect called the emerald ash borer is killing ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana… and making neighboring states worried. About 15 million ash trees are dead or dying, leaving behind enormous bills. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports some people are trying to ease the loss by salvaging lumber from their dead trees:

Transcript

Homeowners and cities are losing many of their big, beautiful shade
trees. An invasive insect called the emerald ash borer is killing ash
trees in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana… and making neighboring states
worried. About 15 million ash trees are dead or dying leaving behind
enormous bills. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports some people are
trying to ease the loss by salvaging lumber from their dead trees:


(sound of birds chirping)


The emerald ash borer ruined Frank Wydra’s summer plans. His 10 acre
lot is full of ash trees… more than a hundred. Wydra built an
elaborate shade garden underneath a cluster of ash trees, right next to
his brand new house. Right around the time he and his family were
ready to move in… they noticed the trees were looking sick.


“They were here when we bought the property and we sort of built the
property, the house around these trees. I had no alternative but to
cut these down, because they were so close to the house.”


Wydra says he’s losing a lot more than a shady backyard. He says the
emerald ash borer is costing him at least 10-thousand dollars. That’s
the cost for cutting the trees down, grinding the stumps out… and
planting new trees. But there’s one part of that cost he’s not too
upset about: the 100 dollars an hour he’s paying to have his dead ash
trees milled into lumber.


(sound of portable sawmill at work and running under)


“It’s got a very close grain that allows you to mill it without too
much trouble. It’s nice stuff. I wish I hadn’t built all my
cabinets.”


Frank Wydra’s already got more board feet of ash piled up here than he
knows what to do with. But he says he’d rather pay to have the logs
turned into something he can use than pay to have them hauled away.
Wydra hired a company called Last Chance Logs to Lumber. Chris Last
brings his portable sawmill to sites like this one, and with some help
from his family members, he loads the logs onto the sawmill and slices
the bark away.

(sound of rolling logs under)

“We’re required to take at least a half inch below those two layers,
you’ll see as we open this up… just the characteristics of the log will
determine that… usually we take off more than that.”

By stripping away the bark and a half inch of the wood beneath the
bark, Chris Last is making sure none of the emerald ash borers will
survive.
Researchers have found that carefully debarking ash logs is one way to
make the wood safe to use.

Chris Last created his business four years ago, shortly after the ash
borer was first identified as the pest killing trees in the upper
Midwest. Since then, he says some of his customers have gotten pretty
creative.

“The neatest thing is a gentleman that was an architect, when he had
the tree cut down he left the log standing for about 10 feet, and what
he ended up building was an old English cottage house on top of this
stump. I guess he reads up there, but it’s beautiful, it’s absolutely
gorgeous, every bit of it, every stick is made out of ash.”

Last says he’s seen a church craft new pews from their ash trees, and
he’s worked for cities that have built picnic tables from ash, but for
the most part, homeowners and city officials are just starting to
figure out how to use the lumber from their dead trees.


Jessica Simons is with the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and
Development Council. It’s a nonprofit group that’s giving out grants
to promote the use of ash wood. Simons says the idea’s catching on,
but there are some real obstacles.


“To be honest, it can be a tricky proposition. What’s easier: go to
Lowe’s and buy lumber, or to have your dead trees removed, hire a
sawmill, have the mill come out, allow wood to dry and then be able to
finish it into a product.”


But Simons says milling ash trees into lumber can sometimes save money.
Right now, most homeowners and cities chip up their dead trees and have
the chips hauled away. Both of those steps cost money. Simons says by
milling trees on site, you can cut back on the disposal costs and end
up with wood for a new dining table or a bunch of park benches.

Jessica Simons points out that not all parts of the ash trees can be
turned into products. She says most of the ash wood waste from
Michigan and Ohio gets trucked up to a co-generation plant in Flint,
Michigan, where the wood chips are burned to generate electricity.
Simons says that is a good use for the lower-value parts of the trees,
like stumps or branches.


“But the only thing we’ve argued throughout this is that a number of
great logs were in that wood as well, and when you think about the
value that wood can have as lumber or a higher value product like a
railroad tie, it’s worth much more than what a truckload of fuel is
worth.”


Simons admits re-using dead ash trees won’t cut back a lot on the
tremendous costs that homeowners and cities are bearing to deal with
the ash borer, but she argues that turning ash trees into flooring or
furniture could generate a little bit of money instead of just adding
another line onto the bill.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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EASING THE ASH BORER’S FINANCIAL BITE (Short Version)

Millions of ash trees are being killed by a tiny green beetle called the emerald ash borer. Some people say all those dead trees shouldn’t be considered waste, so they’re recycling the trees into lumber.
The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Millions of ash trees are being killed by a tiny green beetle called
the emerald ash borer. Some people say all those dead trees shouldn’t
be considered waste, so they’re recycling the trees into lumber. The
GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has more:


Most of the time, when cities cut down their dead ash trees, they chip
up the trees and have them hauled away. Some people are trying to find
uses for the lumber from the trees instead.


Jessica Simons is with the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and
Development Council. It’s a nonprofit group that’s giving out grants to
promote the use of ash wood. Simons says cutting ash logs into lumber
can sometimes save cities money, because they can cut back on the cost
of chipping up and hauling away the trees:


“They’re also aren’t paying for lumber for other city projects because
they’re just paying for that wood to be milled and then they have all
the wood they need for projects like park benches or picnic tables or
sideboards for their trucks.”


Simons says because it’s a relatively new concept some cities have had
trouble finding room to store all of the lumber they’ve made from the
trees, but she says the idea’s still starting to catch on, as cities
look for ways to cut costs.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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