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.

Related Links

Raging Grannies Take to the Streets

  • They're not your typical protestors. Photo courtesy of Raging Grannies of British Columbia.

When we think of protestors these days, many of us conjure up images of twenty-year-olds with bandanas, long hair, and multiple piercings. But there’s another group attracting attention at protests. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, they call themselves the Raging Grannies:

Transcript

When we think of protestors these days, many of us conjure up images of twenty-year-olds with
bandanas, long hair, and multiple piercings. But there’s another group attracting attention at
protests. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, they call themselves the
‘Raging Grannies.’


(chattering)


People chat and drink coffee as they mingle between display tables at the Dandelion Festival in
Kingston, Ontario. But the friendly chatter is soon interrupted by the sound of drums in the
distance.


(sound up)


Before long, a conga line of elderly-looking women comes into sight. Their outfits cause jaws to
drop. Shawls are layered on aprons, on top of housecoats and striped leggings – all topped off by
hats piled high with flowers, birds, and fruit. The ‘Raging Grannies’ know how to make an
entrance.


(dandelion lawns now…)


With their own take on familiar songs, the grannies captivate the audience. People stop
everything to stare at eighty crazily dressed women playing the washboard and singing at the
top of their lungs.


And that’s when the grannies deliver their message – about things like pollution, poverty, or health
care.


63-year-old Margaret Slavin-Diamond says the grannies are true subversives.


“We deliberately look older than we are, and we deliberately play on the idea that people expect
less of older women. And then say things with these tunes that people think of as old-fashioned
and safe, and then we say things that have a real edge to them.”


The first group of Raging Grannies was founded in British Columbia in the mid-80s.
There are now about 60 groups, including chapters in Minnesota, New York and California.
The grannies like to make surprise appearances – at events like political functions and chemical
industry meetings. There’s no real hierarchy among the grannies. But there is one rule – you
must be a woman and over 55.


(Rose singing)


60-year-old Rose Deshaw sits on a couch, bouncing as she sings. Even in this crowd of bizarre
outfits, Rose stands out. She wears a neon striped dress and bright yellow feathers in her hair.
She resembles an exotic bird. And like many of the women here, Rose comes primarily
as a grandmother.


(finish song, then fade)


“A lot of times in a protest, I just carry a picture of my grandbaby. That’s all I need to carry
cause they know what that’s about.”


Rose is one of the creative forces behind the raging grannies. She writes many of the songs and
she’s author of a ‘Raging Granny’ comic strip in a local newspaper. She’s also been known to lead
the group with help of a rubber chicken.


“It makes people sort of relax. You’re not going to get too uptight with an old lady who’s leading
the singing with a rubber chicken. You don’t know what she’s going to do so you might stay
awake and watch it.”


It’s all part of the group’s mission to soften people’s skepticism with humor. John Bennett of the
Sierra Club says the grannies’ style is effective.


“They often can take a political point and make it very clear in a very quick little song. That’s
much easier to do than the long speech to deliver the message.”


But its not all grandmotherhood and apple pie. At one demonstration, a group of raging grannies
shielded a protestor, preventing his arrest. Others were tear-gassed.


Margaret Slavin-Diamond says she’s seen grannies challenge an officer in riot gear.


“They see that man as their son, a man that they are about and they try to talk to him in those
terms, of what do you think you’re doing? I think that’s something older women in particular are
able to do from our hearts.


(zip pe dee do dah…)


As charming as these women seem to be, law enforcement officials do take them seriously.
The Raging Grannies recently discovered that the Canadian Security and Intelligence Agency
listed them as a subversive group. It’s a label they wear proudly.


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

GROUPS ORGANIZE ‘YEAR OF CLEAN WATER’

October 18th marks the thirty-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the kick-off to what’s being called the “Year of Clean Water.” Conservation groups throughout the country will also use the date to establish the first National Water Monitoring Day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:

Transcript

October 18th marks the thirty-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the kick-off to what’s
being called the “Year of Clean Water.” Conservation groups throughout the country will also
use the date to establish the first National Water Monitoring Day. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:


Water quality experts have a lot of anecdotal evidence that lakes, streams, and rivers in the U.S.
aren’t as polluted as they were in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act. Robbi
Savage is President of America’s Clean Water Foundation.


“People are swimming where, thirty years ago, they never would have considered putting a toe
into the water. People are catching bass and other fish in areas where they never thought that that
fish would ever comeback to the waterways.”


Savage says the problem is that nobody really has definitive proof. That’s because a baseline of
national data wasn’t established thirty years ago. So the Clean Water Foundation and other
groups are using the October 18th date to ask citizens to test their local water and then submit the
results to a national database.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.