LEAD STORY: Reducing Consumption: The Greenest Alternative

FEATURE STORY: The Internet as a Tool for Paper Reduction

NEWS BRIEFS
a) A Biobased Government
b) Eggs & Apples Cradled by Straw
c) Greening in King County
d) A Home for Used Wood
e) EPA Improves its Papers and Buildings
f) Spreading the News on Federal Environmental Executive Priorities
g) EPA Advocates Construction & Demolition Recycling
h) Spotted Owls Breathe a Sigh of Relief
i) Students Push Green Campus Purchasing

CAMPAIGNS & EVENTS
kenaf
recycling
green building
certified wood

RESOURCES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
vote hemp
green Canada

LEAD STORY
Reducing Consumption: The Greenest Alternative

One of the reasons that reducing wood demand is crucial is that the replacements often have their own environmental consequences. An October 7, 2002 article from The Wall Street Journal titled, "Mine Pits Two Green Goals Against Each Other in Town: A Scenic Town Fights Mine for Mineral That Lets Papermakers Use Fewer Trees" by Laura Jones underscores this point. An idyllic Vermont town is faced with the mining operation that will devastate the town's scenery. The town rests on a supply of mineral calcium carbonate used in crayons, car parts, paint, plastic products, foods and as a filler in paper -- its biggest role. A Swiss mining company wants to spend the next 50 years blasting a hole in the town to extract the mineral. According to the mining company Omya AG, nearly 15 percent of the more than 100 million tons of paper made annually consists of calcium carbonate and the amount of calcium carbonate material is equal to tens of millions of trees. The mineral has more commonly replaced wood pulp in Europe where forests are more scarce and only began to penetrate the domestic market in the 1980s. According to David Dyer, an International Paper scientist, typical copy paper in the United States may contain as much as 20 percent of the mineral (although it is as high as 25 percent in Europe). Paper reduction is one obvious way of solving the dilemma. Virtually every consumer of paper can without much effort reduce paper purchases by 20-25 percent.

FEATURE STORY
The Internet as a Tool for Paper Reduction

The Internet plays a role in paper consumption in the United States. In times of economic downturn, companies become particularly reliant on the Internet to cut costs. Replacing paper with electronic forms of communications is cost effective and is gaining greater acceptance from society. It remains to be seen whether this move toward a greater use of the Internet to replace paper will make a substantial dent in the rising global paper consumption rates. In the mean time, some companies are reaping the financial benefits now.

In a drive to reduce costs some companies are forcing customers to pay their bills on-line if they want to avoid a surcharge, reported The New York Times on October 29, 2002 in "Want Bills by Snail Mail? It Might Cost You Money" by Jennifer Bayot. While companies have already been encouraging their customers -- via offering cash, gift certificates, sweepstakes prizes and other incentives -- to pay bills on-line, some are taking more drastic measures. In order to cut administrative costs and save on paper and postage, some businesses, such as telecommunications companies, lenders and insurance providers, have begun to only bill customers on-line and to charge extra when customers want paper statements. The amounts vary, but the additional charge for a paper statement can be in the $1 to $10 per month range. Studies suggest that companies save approximately $1 per bill by moving from a paper-based to an electronic system.

Paper consumption is also reduced via Internet publishing. An October 14, 2002 New York Times article, "Site for the Truly Geeky Makes a Few Bucks" by John Schwartz highlighted an on-line publication, Slashdot.org which focuses on technology news. According to the article it has "a fanatical community of millions of readers." The fact that it is paper-less allows the publication to have very low overhead, since publishing without paper is much less expensive. While paper publications on similar topics such as -- Forbes ASAP and Upside -- have crashed and burned, Slashdot.org's creators estimate that in five years they have published 30,000 articles, served 500 million pages and amassed an audience of 2 million individuals with 50,000 of those readers regularly participating in discussions at least once per month. The effort shows that going without paper does not have to be limiting. In fact, in this situation, it has greatly enriched the value of the publication.

NEWS BRIEFS

a) A Biobased Government
According to AgroTech Communications, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is distributing grants to aid farmers in developing their raw commodities into more complex value-added products. AgroTech Communications calculated that 14 of the 61 grant recipients in 2001 were nonfood/biobased projects, including a company manufacturing wheat straw construction panels, which received almost $6 million of the nearly $20 million total. In 2002, the Value-Added Agricultural Product Market Development Grant (VADG) has made $40 million available. AgFiber Technology News reports in its October 22, 2002, volume 4, number 15, issue 73 that Iso-Straw Cooperative, Inc. from Finley, ND received nearly $400,000 in 2002 grants to determine the economic feasibility of producing a medium-density fiberboard from straw. Affordable Building Systems received more than $100,000 to purchase 6,000 tons of what straw to produce building panels. (According to the AURI Ag Innovation News October-December 2002 issue, Texas farmers who are selling their wheat straw to Affordable Building Systems are earning an extra $36 per acre.)

b) Eggs & Apples Cradled by Straw
The newsletter also reports that Urban Forest Recyclers (UFR), which manufactures molded fiber packaging, such as egg filler flats and apple trays from recycled paper in Saskatchewan, is preparing to scale up to commercial use of straw pulp to replace the recycled paper. The newsletter also highlighted the work of Manitoba companies in supplying and manufacturing ag-based products, such as flax paper, wheat straw particleboard and erosion control blankets from industrial hemp, wheat and barley straw, using in excess of 800,000 tons of ag-fibers for these types of products annually.

c) Greening in King County
Proving yet again that it pays to be green, King County, Washington -- a model in "green" government purchasing -- recently released its Environmental Purchasing Annual Report 2002. From July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002, King County spent nearly $4 million on recycled and environmentally preferable products. In addition to supporting markets for "green" products, King County also saved $550,000. It spent more than $665,000 on recycled copy and bond paper, $1.6 million on recycled printing paper and $500,000 on recycled paper office and janitorial supplies.

d) A Home for Used Wood
The Washington, DC affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International and GreenHome, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to demonstrating affordable and sustainable building projects partnered on a demonstration home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, reported the October 2002, Volume 4, Issue 4 WinterGreen Newsletter -- produced by Steven Winter Associates, Inc. Among other "green" features, the home included salvaged heart pine flooring and salvaged walnut kitchen cabinets. It also used recycled content building products and managed building wastes to diver them from landfills.

e) EPA Improves its Papers and Buildings
EPA has announced its 2005 and 2010 goals for complying with Executive Order 13101, Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention, Recycling and Federal Acquisition -- issued by President Clinton. The goals which are likely to impact wood consumption relate to green buildings, green copy paper and publications, green meetings, green office supplies and recycling and waste prevention. Specific objectives include items such as ensuring that all significant new EPA facilities meet U.S. Green Building Council's silver LEED standard (a system which awards points for "green" attributes), as well as ensuring that printing paper contains a minimum of 50 percent post-consumer recycled content -- well above the standard set in EO 13101.

f) Spreading the News on Federal Environmental Executive Priorities
John Howard, the Federal Environmental Executive has recently been spreading the message about the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive's priorities. At the October 3, 2002, Smart Design Forum 3 held at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. and hosted by the Sustainable Washington Alliance, Mr. Howard discussed the green federal buildings priority. At the October 8, 2002 Stakeholders' Forum on Growing the Federal Use of Biobased Products in Washington, D.C., Mr. Howard discussed the need for government agencies to increase the procurement of biobased products. For transcripts from these events, see the http://www.ofee.gov website under "What's New."

g) EPA Advocates Construction & Demolition Recycling
Green buildings are also being addressed under EPA's WasteWise program. In a new initiative, WasteWise Building Challenge, EPA is working to encourage public, private and nonprofit institutions to reduce their waste from building construction, renovation and demolition. The initiative aims to aid organizations in expanding their waste reduction programs to deal with construction and demolition (C&D) debris. The new program will focus on reducing, reusing and recycling C&D debris, as well as buying recycled building products. Wood generally comprises a large portion of C&D debris that has traditionally been landfilled, instead of reused.

h) Spotted Owls Breathe a Sigh of Relief
Aware of the markets and customers' concern, International Forest Products (Interfor) has announced that it will halt all logging in spotted owl habitat in British Columbia, according to the October 14, 2002 article, "Forest Firm to Stop All Logging in Spotted Owls' B.C. Territory" by Rod Mickleburgh in The Globe and Mail. Company officials stated that they wished to avoid further controversy. Interfor is one of a long list of companies that have responded to environmental campaigns aimed at influencing consumer concerns over forest products. Individual consumers not only have power over their own consumption of wood-based products, but that they can affect the type of fibers corporations use in products.

i) Students Push Green Campus Purchasing Students are pursuing "green" purchasing efforts on their college campuses. National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology, which distributes grants toward these efforts, recently announced its 2002-2003 fellows. Students at University of Vermont, University of Massachusetts - Amherst and Rutgers University are all working on environmentally preferable purchasing projects.

CAMPAIGNS & EVENTS

American Kenaf Society (AKS) is holding its 5th Annual Conference in Memphis, Tennessee November 7-9, 2002. For more information, see www.kenafsociety.org.

The Northeast Recycling Council is holding its Fall Conference in Hartford, CT on Nov. 5 and 6. For more information, see www.nerc.org/meetings/0211Agenda.htm.

The U.S. Green Building Council's first International Green Building Conference & Expo will be held November 13-15 in Austin, TX. For more information on the conference, see www.usgbc.org.

The Certified Forest Products Council is hosting a series of workshops regarding certified and reclaimed wood. For more information, see www.certifiedwoodworkshop.org.

RESOURCES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

In an effort to get out the vote for hemp, Vote Hemp has compiled a list of candidates for the U.S. Senate and House who support allowing U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp. The list is available at http://www.VoteHemp.com/voterguide.html.

The Government of Canada recently established a web site on greening the government at http://www.greeninggovernment.gc.ca/indexe.htm. The site is intended to coordinate and support employees in federal agencies on their "greening" efforts in Canada. The site includes a section on procurement which highlights the need of reducing consumption in addition to green purchasing.