October 2003 Newsletter
Reusing and Recycling Bikes and Parts Locally
PVC Recycling?
Legislative Wrap Up
The Launching of Electronic Product Stewardship in Oregon
Contribute to ESOR at Your Workplace: It's So Easy.
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Reusing and Recycling Bikes and Parts Locally
Community Cycling Center in Portland
Go to any big box store or new bike shop and you will see an array of shiny new bicycles in a line or hanging from racks, usually shipped thousands of miles from off-shore factories. The Community Cycling Center (CCC) has a different take on what buying and owning a bike is all about. Founded in 1993, the Community Cycling Center is a program-based non-profit organization that teaches bicycle safety and maintenance to children from low-income families. The CCC also operates a full service professional bike shop and has a program to help low-income adults earn commuter bicycles.
Refurbishing to extend product life
The Community Cycling Center Bike Shop sells only used, refurbished bicycles. Individuals, institutions and supporting businesses donate the bicycles and parts. Churches, businesses, schools, and neighborhood groups hold bike collection events with materials going to the CCC. Bikes, some of which are sold to the public in the CCC shop, are cleaned and repaired by hundreds of volunteers and a team of CCC staff mechanics. Other bikes are earned by low-income children and adults through CCC programs. The Community Cycling Center professional staff inspects all the repaired bikes that are sold or used in the CCC's cycling programs. Used bikes carry a 30-day warranty. The CCC shop operates as a standard, professional bike shop with repair services so riders may maintain and extend the life of their bicycles. Community volunteers have the opportunity to learn bicycle repair through the CCC's volunteer program.
In 2002, the Community Cycling Center recycled 31,840 pounds of material and reused over 70,000 pounds of bikes and parts through retail sales and cycling programs. Materials come to the CCC as whole bikes or bike parts. Staff mechanics sort through the bikes and determine what they will be best used for, and they select useable parts to remove from damaged bicycles. The CCC recycling coordinator, an AmeriCorps-supported position, oversees hundreds of community volunteers who dismantle the bikes for recycling and sort useable parts.
Materials that have no reusability at the CCC are transported to a partnering company such as Resource Revival that creates functional and decorative artwork and Splaff, a flip flop and accessory maker in California. As a last resort, materials for which there is no reuse outlet are hauled away with scrap metal. All these materials, whether used as whole, refurbished bikes or portioned out for parts, are carefully tracked and measured through the CCC's recycling program.
In 2003, the Community Cycling Center won three influential local awards for its work in recycling and reuse. The Association of Oregon Recyclers awarded the CCC the Alice Soderwall Reuse & Waste Prevention Award this summer. The CCC was a 2003 BEST Business Awards Winner in the category of Waste Reduction for reusing 35 tons of materials in a year and decreasing CO2 by 170 tons. The Business Recycling Awards Group also awarded the CCC funds to purchase 100% recycled content paper for one year.
For more information about the CCC and its programs call (503) 288-8864 or visit www.CommunityCyclingCenter.org.
Additives and toxins prove highly problematic
By Lori Stole
Manufacturers commonly use polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in building materials, toys, food packaging, and medical devices. The status of PVC recycling can be summarized pretty quickly: There isn't much of it happening. In fact, PVC is the least recycled common plastic.
One reason for this is that each PVC application has a different additive combination determined by its performance requirements. Additives can affect such properties as UV stability, flexibility, impact resistance, color, hardness, heat resistance and melting point. The presence of additives causes problems with recycling for all plastic types, because items with differing additive combinations must be recycled separately, and it is generally not possible to determine what additives are in any particular manufactured item. However, PVC resin is cheap, readily adapted by the use of additives, and generally not useful without additives, which has driven the selection of PVC for manufacturers and resulted in an endless variety of additive combinations. When the additives do not actually join on to part of the plastic molecules, they are not bound and can more readily off-gas or form a film on the surface of the finished item, sometimes resulting in toxicity concerns.
The other recycling problem is that, unlike most other common plastics, PVC contains chlorine. Any time the PVC is melted to allow recycling, the chlorine can result in the release of dioxin (the most potent carcinogen known and a persistent bioaccumulative toxin), ethylene dichloride, hydrochloric acid and vinyl chloride, which can all cause severe health problems.
These issues provide enough of a deterrent to PVC recycling that very little is taking place. The Association of Postconsumer Recyclers has become increasingly critical of the PVC industry because virtually no market exists for the baled PVC scrap that is being stockpiled by many of their member recyclers. Statistics from a variety of sources all agree that less than 1% of the PVC is recycled, perhaps much less.
A survey of local recyclers revealed the following:
PVC Bottles: They collect all types of plastic bottles of which only a small percent is PVC. For the most part these various bottle types are marketed overseas as a mix. Even in very small quantities PVC bottles are a problem contaminant to the more predominant and recyclable bottle resins. It is not known how offshore processors are handling PVC.
PVC building materials: 75% of PVC use is for building materials, and many types of building materials are made from PVC; windows, siding, piping, flooring and more. Prices for this commodity (PVC building materials collected for recycling) are low and it is tough to find a buyer. Nobody accepts post-consumer PVC building materials, as there are no markets. Pre-consumer window profile can be marketed domestically. Nobody mentioned that they accept vinyl siding and a further recycling complication is that newer siding designs have a non-PVC nailing strip. (Because of the toxicity, recycling and other issues some European countries are banning PVC for construction).
Everything else: All other PVC items are thrown out, and if they find themselves in an incinerator they continue to cause problems by forming dioxins.
What you can do
Learn more about PVC from the following web sites. Recognize that this material cannot be easily recycled and, in fact, often causes problems as a contaminant for the recycling of other materials. Shop for alternatives to products made from PVC (labeled with the number "3"). The following links provide information about products that contain PVC, their potential toxic consequences, and alternatives to PVC products. As a consumer, you can do your part to demand that vendors sell PVC-free products.
Links to learn about PVC
Healthy Building Network: www.healthybuilding.net
Environmental Building News: www.buildinggreen.com/features/pvc/pvc.html
Center for Health and Environmental Justice: www.chej.org/techassist.html
Working Films: My House is Your House campaign: www.workingfilms.org/index2.html
www.shirtmagic.com/PVC.htm -This site includes many links.
www.chemicalindustryarchives.org
What the 2003 Legislature did and didn't do for recycling
By Lori Stole
The 2003 legislative session is finally over! How did this session impact the state of recycling in Oregon? Of the 19 recycling-related bills introduced, six made it to the governor's desk and were signed into law. The biggest news of these six was our own electronics product stewardship bill, SB 867, which passed in the very last days of the session thanks to Rep. Jackie Dingfelder's persistence. This bill starts Oregon down the road of electronics product stewardship.
The next biggest news is what didn't happen. Because RA and other groups beat back HB 3637, glass cullet collected for recycling will continue to stay out of landfills. In fact, through the battle to stop this "Glass to Trash" bill, it was recognized that our state has markets for all the recycled container glass we can collect.
Glass container manufacturers are still required to use recycled glass, but they now have a reprieve until 2008 when they will have to use 50% recycled content.
On the other hand, no advances were made on the waste tire front, with recycling of mercury containing items or with tracking to determine the amount of unclaimed container deposits.
The following bills did NOT survive:
HB 2036: Establishes Waste Tire Recycling Board.
HB 2037: Establishes statewide recycling and recovery goal for waste tires.
HB 2038: Relates to waste tire-recycling account.
HB 2971: Prohibit CRT disposal at landfills.
HB 3021 and HB 3594: Requires reporting/ tracking of unclaimed beverage container deposits.
HB 3144: Deletes requirement that glass container manufacturers use at least 50% recycled glass after Jan. 2004.
HB 3288: Provides for household battery collection.
HB 3313: Similar to SB 926, which did pass.
HB 3563: Develop program for electronic product disposal, create fund for infrastructure, point of sale fee.
HB 3637: Allows disposal of source separated cullet at disposal site.
SB 818/HB3395: Products with elemental mercury or mercury compounds must have labels, have collection and recycling plan, looks at mercury emissions.
Bills passed include:
SB 748: Requires collection and recycling program for fishing tackle.
SB 859: Transfers funds from the Waste Tire Recycling Account to the General Fund.
SB 867: Electronics product stewardship bill, requested by RA.
SB 912: Postpones requirement for glass container manufacturers to use 50% recycled content until January of 2008 and allows 35% until then.
SB 926: Allows beverage container dealers to refuse to accept beverage containers that are damaged to such extent that bar code or brand name is unreadable.
HB 2158: Relates to requirements of state recycling programs.
You can look for yourself at the details of all these bills by going to the legislative web site: www.leg.state.or.us/searchmeas.html.
The Launching of Electronic Product Stewardship in Oregon
By Wayne Rifer
The state legislature this year adopted SB 867, proposed by Recycling Advocates, which launches Oregon's official involvement in electronic product stewardship.
SB 867 establishes a multi-stakeholder advisory committee to examine the existing infrastructure for reuse and recycling of discarded electronics, and to help Oregon become a leader in the rollout of a national program. Ever since Recycling Advocates initiated the Western Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative (WEPSI), we have been actively participating in both the regional and national efforts. Now NEPSI, the National Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative, is nearing a final solution. NEPSI has been a two-and-a-half year negotiation between electronics manufacturers, government, non-profit advocacy organizations, recyclers and other stakeholders.
The national solution will provide a funding mechanism, based on fees paid when you buy a computer or television. But recycling starts on the local level, and how products will be collected from the public, made available for local reuse, and prepared for shipment to recyclers are questions that must be answered on a state and community level.
Representative Jackie Dingfelder of northeast Portland sponsored SB 867, and she is leading the effort to begin its implementation. One of the first steps is the appointment of the advisory committee members. The Oregon Economic and Community Development Department (OECDD) is the lead State agency, and the advisory committee will report to that department, as well as provide recommendations to the legislature.
Funding for the advisory committee was a major issue in the bill's passage, given the disastrous state budget this year. Many thanks to the Oregon Recycling Market Development Advisory Corporation (ORMDC) for providing seed money that will get the process started.
Stay tuned. We will provide you regular updates as electronic product stewardship grows in Oregon.
For a copy of the legislation go to: http://pub.das.state.or.us/LEG_BILLS/PDFs/ESB867.pdf.
Contribute to ESOR at Your Workplace: It's So Easy.
For thousands of Oregonians, the advent of fall means the changing of the leaves - and the arrival of charitable fundraising campaigns in the workplace. With the help of donors in the workplace, Earth Share of Oregon's (ESOR's) 66 non-profit conservation organizations receive funds to protect human health, preserve wildlife habitat, and reduce the causes and effects of global warming.
Recycling Advocates is a proud member of ESOR. What does this mean to you? You and your fellow employees can choose to have contributions sent automatically to your favorite Oregon conservation groups, including Recycling Advocates. Since your contribution is spread out over the course of a year, the amount deducted from your paycheck is minimal, and all gifts are fully tax deductible. You can make a difference!
If your workplace is not currently involved in an ESOR giving program, establishing one is easy. ESOR will work with your employer to set up a program that meets your company's needs. Oregon's natural beauty and livability is legendary. With your contribution to ESOR, you can help ensure that it stays that way. For more information, please contact Ron Shoals at ESOR at (503) 223-9015 or rrs@earthshare-oregon.org. To learn more about Earth Share visit www.earthshare-oregon.org.