By Ollie & Gloria Maier
In last week’s column, we mentioned our Texas State University’s students having a second e-waste (electronics) collection effort in April trying to double if not triple last year’s effort.
Don’t know if it’s related (but think it probably is), an item in the latest Resource Recycling e-newsletter caught our eye.
“The 10th year of RecycleMania, the college-based recycling competition, launched Jan. 17.
Over the next 10-weeks, participating schools will report recycling and waste data, which will be ranked according to which school collects the most recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate.”
Such efforts are good in that they not only help inform the students about the advantages of recycling, but also collect a considerable amount as nationwide.
“Last year, 69.4 million pounds of recyclable material was collected in conjunction with the competition …“
Although more than just electronics is collected in the competition, it is an important part. And speaking of electronics, “Concurring with the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show, with the attendant green claims by many companies, Greenpeace again called itself the final arbiter of environmental friendliness, issuing its latest Guide to Greener Electronics.”
In the Greenpeace ratings “... electronics giant Nokia took the top spot for the sixth straight time, earning praise for toxics use reduction...“
And Sony Ericsson advanced to second place as the "best performer on the toxic chemicals criteria of all the ranked brands."
Since we use an iMac to write these articles, we were happy to see “ Apple continues its upward movement through the rankings — climbing from 11th two guides ago — to fifth place, earning high marks for ‘eliminating toxic chemicals and e-waste criteria.’"
One of the reasons Sony got such high marks was because its “... new VAIO W "eco-edition" mini laptop includes more than 20-percent recycled PC and ABS, which comes from recycled CDs and DVDs.” And “The laptop's carrying case is made from recycled PET.”
And in the area of plastics, if you’re involved in the collection of it, you may want to attend “This year's 2010 Plastics Recycling Conference.” This national event will be held March 2-3, just north of us at The Hilton Austin in Austin, Texas. For more on it, go to the www.plasticsrecycling.com website.
Although glass recycling does not seem to get a high priority, an interesting item in the same e-newsletter mentioned “... 12.6 million tons of glass packaging was collected in 2008 in Europe (including such non-European Union states as Norway, Switzerland and Turkey), for an average collection recycling rate of 65 percent ... “
Till next week, do have a great one...
Gloria and Ollie are local citizens concerned with the environment and helping others. Ollie is a graduate of Leadership San Marcos and they both received higher education at TxState University and worked on staff before retiring. For questions or comments, please call 353-7432 or e-mail them to omaier@TxState.edu.
