Posts Tagged ‘paper’

How much fiber do you have?

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

We all have fiber. No, I don’t mean dietary fiber, but rather fiber waste. When we talk fiber waste, we mean things like cardboard, paper and the like. It is a huge problem in the US. Estimates vary, but at least half of all the waste that fills today’s landfill is fiber waste. At the same time, paper and cardboard are a vital commodity that can be bought and sold on the open market. It seems foreign to me that people do not ALL recycle cardboard? I can remember using a bailer at every job I had in retail-going back over 25 years. Since moving to Ohio, though it seems that much of what could be considered a resource is casually dumped into the landfill.

Luckily, there are groups like E4S who are determined to raise awareness and connect people who can change this. Today I attended a fiber waste panel discussion. The room was packed, which made me happy to see so much interest. Let’s face it. We pay for garbage service, but we pay less for recyclables. In fact, sometimes we get paid to recycle. So what is the deal? This was the question that was put to the panel. This panel discussion was moderated by Victoria Avi. The panelists included:

Beau Daane, Business and Recycling Specialist, Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District
Jaca Kaverman, Assistant Executive Housekeeper, Hyatt Regency Cleveland
John Piotrowski, VP of Operations, Green Recovery Group
Janet VonGunten, Specifications Sales Representative, xpedx

In addition, there was a supplier of recycling service pick up and a compactor company. Overall, the discussion was for businesses who have yet to start a recycling program or who are just getting their feet wet, it was filled with great ideas and resources. I even learned a thing or two from the talented and informed panel. Basically, though the idea was this:
Recycle your paper waste. It is the easiest thing to recycle and still most of it goes to landfill.
Cardboard is a valuable commodity and you can get paid for it.
If you are in an office setting, think about partnering with other tenants.
The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District has a welath of information on how to deal with your waste stream and reduce your impact on the landfill.
Start with reduction before recycling. If you can use less to begin with, you will save money on products AND trash.
Reuse paper products whenever you can.
Engage your staff.
Identify opportunities and use them to benefit your company.
Recycling can help your bottom line and save you some money!
I could go on and on, but we watched this video and I think it says it all:

E4S events are top notch and I highly recommend you try and make it to as many of them as you can! And join the Zero Waste Network.

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Posted in Cleveland, Green | No Comments »

Coupons? There’s an app for that!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

While I still don’t have an iPhone ( I love Verizon and its customer service), I am excited about all the apps out there. They are changing the way we do business, run our ives, even shop. The Apple app store has applications for their iPhones in numbers that stagger the imagination. Lost? Use the iPhone to give you directions. Wonder what that song is you are hearing? Let the iPhone tell you. What star is that in the sky? Take a picture and the iPhone will tell you. Yes there is an application for nearly anything under the sun, and while many are frivolous and silly, many are going to have a huge impact on how we look at things like paper printing and credit cards. It does take electricity to keep your iPhone powered up, but the reduction in paper could make a huge impact.

A while back, TSA started a pilot program to allow some customers to download their boarding pass directly to their smart phone, where it could be scanned for boarding. If you think about the sheer volume of people flying into and out of a major airport, we could same tons of paper every day with a program like this. Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had over 90 million passengers last year. That is 90 million sheets of paper that could have been saved. By my unscientific calculations, that is a stack about the size of a 10 story building every day, or 35 stacks a year the size of the Eiffel Tower. That is just one airport, granted the busiest airport in the world (rated by the Airports Council International), but still only one airport.

I have heard that JC Penney was experimenting with coupons for smart-phones and iPhones. This is a program that I can get behind. We have undergone a huge paper reduction and managed to get our junk mail reduced significantly. Still, we receive a pretty hefty chunk of coupons in the mail. Then there is the newspaper, which is dying a slow painful death these days. With sales and coupons available online, consumers no longer need to deal with the stack of print that we used to. If one could opt-in to recieve ads and coupons directly to your phone from all your favorite stores, then shopping would become a breeze. No more HH Greg coupons if you don’t buy appliances or electronics, or no more clothing ads if you are thrift store shopper. Not only could this make a huge dent in the amount of paper we waste every year, but it could go a long way to making stores more profitable. They can market to the customers who want their merchandise and not the whole world. One day, it could mean the end of the printed circular.

There are two apps for the iPhone that make shopping easier now. Wallet Zero and CardStar allow users to imput their store loyalty cards into their iPhone and it creates the barcode that can be scanned at the store. I don’t know about you, but between Best Buy, Giant Eagle, CVS, Pat Catans, Staples, and a host of other stores, my wallet can be bulging. I tried using the keyring bits, but they all come off and the bar code becomes obscured. Now with the right app, one can eliminate all of that. Good news, too, as those highly laminated cards do not recycle.

Traveling? Forget about printing maps anymore. With an app from the Apple Store, you can have virtually any map on your phone in seconds. No more need for printing postcards or stamps. When you are out and about, you can make your own with a photo that you snap with your phone and email instantly. With phrase books on your phone, you can get everything that you want while you are away. For that matter, you can buy whole books and read them on the go, what a convenience.

Another cool app is changing the way we do business. Ever wanted to pay with a credit card while at an art fair or other outdoor performance. Now there is an app that lets a merchant run a credit card through their phone, capture a signature and emails a receipt. No fuss, no muss. Many thermal receipt printers use paper that is not recyclable, and they fade rather quickly. Have an electronic receipt would make my life so much easier to manage.

While there are greener phones out there, like Samsung’s phone with 80% recycled materials, the iPhone could help the whole world jump start their green efforts. A simple reduction of paper, means less trees destroyed, less emissions from mills, and less waste. When you think about the fact that most landfills are approximately 36% paper filled, we could do a lot for the planet by simply reducing our paper usage. For every ton of paper that is not thrown out, we save 3 cubic yards of landfill. So, saving the planet, there ARE apps for that!

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Green | 2 Comments »

Do Not Mail

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

I have already written on how much I hate junk mail. I will not bore you with a new tirade. I did join the Do Not Mail campaign. They have made some headway. They are on a fundraising campaign, so I wanted to give you the heads up. They are striving to save thousands of trees that succumb each year to make that catalog you never read or the offer of credit that you do not want. Remember, paper makes up a large portion of our waste. Most junk mail goes unread, and much goes into the landfill.

video platform
video management
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If you have trouble viewing this video go here. Find out what they are doing and maybe support a worthy cause. They also have tips on reducing YOUR junk mail!

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Death of the Plain Dealer?

Monday, March 9th, 2009

I was reading an article in Time (online) about how the Plain Dealer was one of the 10 newspapers that is sure to close or go digital by the end of next year. I am not a huge fan of the daily paper. I don’t get it. Much like the local news, I find that local papers seem to misjudge what is important to me. Add to that the blogosphere and a host of other locations that allow me to find and gather the information and news that is important to me, I am not surprised to see print media suffering. Traditional ways of doing business are no longer valid in a web 2.0 world. Print media is not paid for by the subscriptions or the newsstand price. It is paid for by advertising. As fewer and fewer Americans are relying on the delivery of a printed page to their front door every morning for their news, businesses are seeing less and less reason to shell out the money for advertising in a form that is reaching less of its audience. But that doesn’t mean it is cheaper to print the paper. On the contrary, like the rest of the world’s goods paper and ink are going up in cost. It is becoming more expensive to find and retain talent. With less advertisers to pay that cost, it becomes less economically viable to print a daily paper.

While I am no advocate of the PD or any other paper closing its doors and putting more hard working people out of work, it is clear that we need to rethink the business model of print media. The blog is here to stay. Any idiot (like me) can create his own content and stream it to the world on a regular basis. The cost of broadcasting in this manner is next to nothing. I am just one guy who writes a few articles a week about Cleveland and sustainability. There are thousands right here in town. Want to know about restaurants and what is new in the food scene? There is a blog for that. What about politics? Thousands-maybe hundreds of thousands, and each has its own slant. Want to know about the economy, arts and living, local events? There are plenty of places to find these things on the web, either blogs or websites or notices. Miss that article on the Flats project? Not to worry, with the web publications, it is likely to be available for months-if not indefinitely. You can even keep up with what is going on at home when you travel. And some of these bloggers and online media outlets are making a fine living! Moreover, because many of them have specific audiences, advertisers can easily reach their target audience. If local news media wants to stay alive, it is time for a shift and a new business model. The New York times is available in print. But that may not last. You can download a subscription for much less than having a physical paper delivered. With a digital reader, you can still read it on the subway or at lunch. It is time for this kind of a change-and I am all for it.

I know very few people who read the entire paper cover to cover. There is an entire section for classified ads that goes into every paper. How many subscribers look through all those ads every day? No one is my guess. On line, you can look for just the item you want and with the rise of eBay and Craig’s List, you can see choices from around the country. That section seems to be a waste of good paper that has only a 50/50 chance of being recycled. What about the pictures. Online, you can see images that are crystal clear. You can find higher resolution photos that are suitable for framing. What do you get in the paper? Dots and pixels and many so small they are hard to even see. How much info goes into the newspaper that is of interest to you? Traditional print media requires that everything that may be of interest to anyone be evaluated for print and a decision made. Online does not have the same restrictions. You can organize and rearrange in an instant, while including more or less information as your readers demand. Online distributions also provide you with specific information about the demographics of those who are reading your content, making it easy to evaluate your effectiveness and make changes based on subscriptions.

I think it is high time that print media says good bye. I have long been an advocate of dumping direct mail and junk mailings. I believe strongly in recycling, but not everyone else does. I know of few people that have bothered to call or write because of a postcard that they received in the mail. In order to use less resources, we need to close the loop. One way is make recycling easier, but I think it is time we start thinking about putting the emphasis on reducing rather than recycling. No one will need to recycle newspapers if they are not printed in the first place. Magazines are already available on line, why bother printing copies? Why make flyers and coupons, when you can start a blog or do some more creative marketing.

Tivo and the DVR have made it easier and easier to avoid commercials, but those who are going to do well, are those who are finding more creative ways to advertise their products (like product placement). It is time for print media to reinvent itself. Rather than dying a horrible slow and painful death, the Plain Dealer should be looking at business models like Cleveland.com and its rivals. I get the headlines twittered to my desktop and can easily link to the stories that interest me. Why are we cutting down valuable forests to make paper to print papers that may or may not be read, and that likely will go into the landfill? Nearly every home has a computer and online access, time to frop the print and make the paper available in the inbox, not the paper box. The only downside is that it is harder to do the crossword.

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Green | 9 Comments »

Do Not Call-Do Not Mail!

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

I hate junk mail.  Who doesn’t?  But I mean that I really hate junk mail.  It exhausts me.  The average person spends 8 months of their life dealing with junk mail.  With identity theft on the rise and the need to shred, I bet it is more than that!  I have to open all the credit card “borrow money checks,” the offers of credit and anything with my name on it and shred it.  I have to open every envelope from American Express, because they often diguise their special offers to look like a statement.  I get the Gold Clipper coupon book.  It has the same ads every time, and I have never used it for anything, but they still send it.  I also get a weekly circular.  Someone must know that I don’t buy the paper, it is mostly advertising and therefore a waste of trees) because I get all the coupons and sale ads that I have been trying to avoid.  Top that off with the coupons and special values from any store that I have ever bought an appliance or had change my oil, and it is quite a stack.  I used to have a tiny mailbox, in the hopes that the mailman would just stop bringing some of it.  Somehow that didn’t work.

The ones that irritates me the most are the charities that send me return address stickers.  First off, I don’t like being pushed into anything.  If I wanted the darn stickers, I would buy them.  I don’t.  I use them-why just toss them in the recycling bin?  Still, I am not going to send you any money (i never have, why would I start now?) and I have return address stickers to last me a lifetime.  images

How does one really get rid of this mountain of wasted paper?  I try to always opt out of sharing information when the credit card company send me their privacy policy.  Sometimes it can be quite a tricky matter, calling between 2 and 4 am on  Tuesday or Thursday-Mountain Time.  I have tried calling some of the catalog senders, and the best I have gotten is “we send that to everyone.”  Yeah, I know.  That is the problem.  Some companies are so sure that you are gonna send away for that Obama painted quarter or silver dollar with the twin towers on it that they send me a prepaid return envelope.  I sent it back empty.  They have to pay for getting it back, and it is my belief that it is their surcharge for wasting the paper in the first place.  They never learn, I still get them.

That is why I love the group ForestEthics.  They are working to save the world’s forests.  They have published a study that indicates that junk mail produces the equivalent emissions of 9 million cars.  They want it stopped, and so do I.  They are making corporations accountable for their actions and rating them on their policies.  Check out the Naughty & Nice list.  They have started a petition to start a US Do Not Mail Registry.  If you are like me, then you are already listed on the do not call registry.  Amazingly enough, it works.  In the past couple of years, I have only gotten one telemarketer call.  Politicians, charities are not included, nor are the surveys that I opt into.  I love it!  No more screening my calls.  No more jumping out of the shower to grab that call that is some guy trying to sell me carpet cleaning.  Just think, you could be free from all that crap that you don’t look at anyway.  The mailman will love you for lighteneing his load.  The recyclers will have less to pick up.  Less trees will have to be cut down.  It is a win/win.  Some print media makers may end up out of work, but I am willing to take that risk.  I mean, direct mail is considered successful if it gets 4-5% response.  Reason enough for them to consider another line of work!

I urge everyone to sign this petition.  Go here and sign it.  It only takes a minute, and it costs nothing.  Unless you like opening junk mail, in which case stop by on Fridays and I will give you mine.

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Posted in Green | 6 Comments »