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Green Star E-News
Green Star E-News Vol. 5, No. 4 April 6, 2004
Recognizing Alaska organizations committed to environmental responsibility.
In this issue:
* Shining Stars
* Recycling Survey Questions
* Electronics Recycling Event – May 7 & 8
* Green Star’s New Look
* Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe Anchorage Results
* Innovative Air Quality Business Incentives – Part II
* This Month’s Hot Link: www.federalelectronicschallenge.net
* Thank you 2004 Sponsors
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SHINING STARS
Green Star welcomes our newest enrollee, GeoEngineers, Inc. The company has enrolled to earn both a Green Star Award and an Air Quality Award.
Congratulations to ABR, Inc., Environmental Research & Services, for achieving a Green Star and an Air Quality Award for its Anchorage office. The awards were presented at the Chamber of Commerce’s “Make It Monday” forum on March 15th. See the article in this issue for details about some of ABR’s air quality initiatives.
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RECYCLING SURVEY QUESTIONS
Let us know what you think about recycling.
1) In your own home, do you recycle?
2) Would you recycle (or recycle more) if you had curbside collection?
3) Would you pay extra to have your recyclables picked up curbside?
4) How much would you be willing to pay extra? $5/month? $10/month? $20/month? more?
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ELECTRONICS RECYCLING EVENT – MAY 7 & 8
Electronics Recycling has a location! We will be accepting old electronic equipment at the old FedEx warehouse at 3444 Old International Airport Road. This is the frontage road along International Airport Road and the building is on the S.W. corner of Jewel Lake and International Airport Road.
Businesses
Businesses and organizations can bring material on Friday, May 7th, between 10am and 4pm. This includes non-profits, schools, government agencies, and other organizations. The cost for businesses, agencies, and schools to recycle is 30¢/pound for all materials. A grant from the Rasmuson Foundation allows us to offer electronics recycling for free to 501(c)(3) public charity nonprofits. Please bring your nonprofit letter of determination to receive free recycling.
If you are a business planning to bring large quantities of materials to the Electronics Recycling Event, please contact Green Star at 278-7827 to let us know general quantities and to arrange for a scheduled drop-off time. Scheduling larger deliveries throughout the day should alleviate some of the bottlenecks experienced last year.
Households
Households can bring material on Saturday, May 8th, between 10am and 4pm. Thanks to sponsorship and grants from BP, Anchorage Solid Waste Services, Dell, and USEPA, households can recycle for free.
Items Accepted
Electronics include items such as computers, monitors, laptops, televisions, fax machines, printers, copiers, stereos, cell phones, microwave ovens and other similar devices that contain a circuit board. We will not accept smoke detectors, loose batteries, household appliances and electric devices without circuit boards.
Volunteering
If you are interested in volunteering for the event, please call 278-7839 or email Jeanne@greenstarinc.org. Several shifts are available on the two collection days, as well as the day before and the Monday after for set-up and final loading and clean-up. Light duty and active/heavy duty jobs are available as well as indoor and outdoor jobs. We are looking for individuals or groups to help. If your business is bringing materials to the event, consider providing a few employees for a volunteer shift to see what happens to it all!
Sponsors
Thank you to our presenting sponsor, BP. The event is also made possible by generous funding from the Municipality of Anchorage Solid Waste Services, the Rasmuson Foundation, Dell, Inc., and USEPA Region 10. Generous donors include FedEx Express, Horizon Lines, TOTE, Weaver Brothers, National Recycling Coalition, Arctic Ice Productions, Graphics Solutions, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, and the Alaska Support Industry Alliance.
Visit www.greenstarinc.org/electronicsinfo.php for more details about the event.
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GREEN STAR’S NEW LOOK
If you’ve visited Green Star’s web site within the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a big change. Our site has a whole new look! With that look comes the usual glitches that accompany any change-over, so be patient as we continue to update pages and fix broken links. If you find errors, broken links, or other oddities, please let us know. It may be a momentary thing or it may be an error we have not found yet.
We hope that the new look and organizational structure will make it easier to find information and, as we update, we hope to add lots more valuable information to the site.
Don’t forget to check our events calendar (click on EVENTS) periodically to see what’s happening in Anchorage. The calendar lists “green bag” events, green events, recycling events, upcoming Earth Day events, board meetings, and other relevant activities.
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NIKE’S REUSE-A-SHOE ANCHORAGE RESULTS
In October 2003, several groups joined the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe project on behalf of the North American Association of Environmental Educators (NAAEE) conference. While it began a long time ago, the project culminated only recently.
Beginning during the October conference and continuing through November, students and community volunteers collected used athletic shoes. At the conference, the effort beat the set goal of 2,000 shoes--a lot for two days and a very short planning period. Skinny Raven Sports and REI both donated bins from their stores and students from West, Polaris, Chugiak, Wasilla, Service, and Bartlett high schools all collected shoes. Individuals and businesses throughout
Anchorage donated to the cause.
In Juneau, another group of AYEA (Alaska Youth for Environmental Action) members joined the cause and collected several hundred shoes in just a couple of weeks. In December 2003 about 2,000 shoes made their way to Nike to be recycled into athletic track material.
In February 2004, AYEA members and volunteers from Covenant House were able to donate 100 pairs of shoes (in excellent condition!) to the Gospel Rescue Mission, AWAIC, Brother Francis Shelter, and the Covenant House Crisis Center. Special thanks to Terri Calvery of Covenant House for helping identify charitable organizations and organizing the donations back to the community.
For a pilot project, this event was quite successful and many folks said they would do it again. Thank you to everyone for your active roles in this project. Not only did we divert many shoes out of Alaska landfills -- we also gave back to the community.
*Thank you to Polly Carr with National Wildlife Federation for this article.
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INNOVATIVE AIR QUALITY BUSINESS INCENTIVES – PART II
ABR, Inc., Environmental Research & Services, was the second local business presenting its innovative air quality business incentives at the Green Bag in February. ABR’S presentation outlined the following programs that are in place to encourage employees to choose alternative transportation.
Financial Incentives
ABR offers employees $1.50 per day for using alternative transportation or $3 per day if the employee commutes via human power (i.e., walking, biking, or skiing). Employees track usage and turn in a log at the end of the year for reimbursement.
Hybrid Vehicles
ABR purchased a 4-Seater Honda Civic Hybrid about four years ago for its Fairbanks office. More recently, the Anchorage office purchased a 2 – Seater Honda Insight. This vehicle gets 45 mpg and requires less than $20 to fill the tank.
Employees are encouraged to use the hybrid vehicles during work hours, and can drive them home for personal use. Costs for maintaining the hybrids have been similar to those of regular vehicles, with fuel costs of course being much less. No batteries have been replaced yet. The large battery could be costly to replace, but it comes with an eight-year warranty. The hybrid vehicle in Fairbanks has done well in cold temperatures, with the exception that it is not as warm inside (3-cyclinder engine) as conventional vehicles. The vehicle looks and feels like an ordinary vehicle, but provides an instantaneous readout of gas mileage.
ABR also provides a stipend of $1500 for employees that buy a hybrid vehicle (about the difference in cost between conventional and hybrid vehicles).
Self Tax on Carbon Production
A more global approach to air quality is ABR’s carbon credit program. ABR adds up its total energy expenditure per year, including travel via air, land, and water, as well as office space energy consumption, and calculates the total amount of carbon impact. ABR estimates that it emits 400 tons of carbon dioxide each year. The 400 tons is then multiplied by six to include the environmental impact of transporting the fuel etc.
Based on this figure, ABR calculates that it needed to spend approximately $6,500/year last year on specific identified projects to have zero net emissions. The projects were identified through several web sites and other personal research by employees and are activities that will reduce carbon emissions.
According to research, one live tree will offset one ton of carbon emissions. It is necessary to plant three trees to guarantee one will grow. Based on this, ABR chose to provide funds to assist in the construction of a portable log mill in Papua New Guineau. At first glance, this seems to contradict the purpose of the project but small-scale, local, sustainable harvesting helps to reduce large-scale, less responsible, clearcut logging projects. The local people benefit and the forests are sustainably managed.
ABR’s Portland, Oregon, office also retrofitted its old office building and improved its efficiency to help offset its carbon releases.
Websites to use: http://www.americanforest.org; http://www.climatecalc.net; http://www.safeclimate.net; http://www.carboncounter.org.
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THIS MONTH’S HOT LINK: http://www.federalelectronicschallenge.net
This is the web site that assists Federal agencies in determining how to properly surplus their unwanted electronics. The Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC) is a purchasing, use, and end-of-life management challenge issued to federal facilities or agencies that want to purchase greener electronics products, manage their electronic assets in an environmentally sound manner, receive assistance in changing their current practices, and gain national recognition for their efforts.
Other local electronics recycling and reuse links:
http://www.greenstarinc.org/electronicsinfo.php -- Green Star’s Electronics Recycling Event in Anchorage – May 7&8
http://www.greenstarinc.org/ame/ameindex.php -- Green Star’s Alaska Materials Exchange – post your usable electronics and other materials for reuse by others.
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THANK YOU 2004 SPONSORS, GRANTORS & CONTRACTORS
Green Star could not exist without the generous financial and in-kind support of many individuals and leading local businesses and organizations. To become a Green Star individual member or corporate sponsor, please call (278-7827) or visit our web site http://www.greenstarinc.org. A huge thank you to our 2004 sponsors!
Platinum ($10,000+): Anchorage Department of Health & Human Services, Anchorage Solid Waste Services, BP, ConocoPhillips, Dell, Inc., Rasmuson Foundation, University of Alaska Anchorage, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 10
Gold ($5,000-$9,999): FedEx Express, Horizon Lines, TOTE, Weaver Brothers
Silver ($2,500-$4,999): Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Anchorage Refuse (A Waste Management Company), Denali Commission, KTUU-Channel 2, Princess Tours
Bronze ($1,000-$2,499): Arctic Ice Productions, Cellular One, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, Graphics Solutions, National Recycling Coalition, Northwest Handling Systems
Green ($500-$999): Alaska Support Industry Alliance, Alaska Warehouse, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Corporate Express Alaska, Mettler Toledo, Scott McLeod Trucking
Supporter ($250-$499): Emerald Alaska, Warning Lites of Alaska
Contributor (up to $250): Alaska Center for the Environment, Alaska Process Industry Careers Consortium, Carrs-Safeway, Coca-Cola Bottling of Alaska, graphXgirl, Great Harvest Bread Co., Pepsi-Cola Bottling Group, Wal-Mart Store #2074
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Past issues of E-News are available on our web site, sorted by topic or date. Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for future E-News topics to us at enews@greenstarinc.org. Forward this newsletter freely. Send us any email addresses you wish to add to our mailing list. Thank you!
The staff of Green Star, Anchorage:
Sean Skaling, Executive Director
Beth Verrelli, Membership & Communications Coordinator
Jeanne Carlson, Program Coordinator
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Additional Links:
Green Star Award
Green Events
Green Star Schools
Site Assessments
Electronics Recycling
AK Materials Exchange
AME Listings
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