CONTENTS:  Product Stewardship: A Bigger Net  Albertson's Thinks Outside Box  Milliken Gets Takeback Off Floor  Armstrong Pushes Takeback to Ceiling  Norm Thompson's Stewardship Culture  For Further Research  P2 Digest  PPRC News  About this Newsletter

Takeback Teasers

How much lead is typically found in a personal computer?

Product Stewardship: Casting a Bigger P2 Net

A Tale of Two Carpets
        Once upon a time, Linear Throughput, Inc. needed new carpeting. The company ordered a conventional rolled carpet manufactured from petroleum-based fibers, adhesives, and dyes. After 10 years of use, the company decided to buy new carpeting. The old carpeting, dirty but still structurally sound, was torn out, loaded aboard a truck, and dumped into a landfill. New carpet made from virgin resources was installed. After 10 years of use....
        Once upon another time, Circular Economics, Inc. wanted new carpeting. The company contacted its floor covering leasing service, which removed the carpet tiles and shipped them back to its fuel cell-powered plant for re-patterning with plant-based dyes. Looking good as new, the reconditioned carpet was re-installed.

A product is more than a thing in a box. A product is like a river - a chain of causes and effects, from "upstream" where raw materials are extracted to the "mouth" at end of product life. "Product stewardship" is a framework for reducing a product's environmental impacts across its life cycle.
        Traditional pollution prevention reduces waste at discrete steps in the product cycle - efficient lighting here, less hazardous process chemicals there. Product stewardship casts a broader net by creating incentives to reduce a product's environmental footprint across its "value chain."
        "Takeback" is a product stewardship tool that transfers responsibility for disposal costs from the public at large to those who buy and sell products directly.
        "Greening supply chains" - setting environmental standards for suppliers - is a tool for reducing product life-cycle impacts. Another technique is "servicizing" - instead of selling products, sell the services the products furnish.
        Under a service model, discarded products can become the feedstock of new products. "Waste equals food" is what architect and industrial designer William McDonough calls the first principle of the "New Industrial Revolution," where businesses mimic the circular energy and material pathways used in nature. (See McDonough's article in The Atlantic at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98oct/industry.htm.)
        The idea is to create economic incentives to lower environmental costs - reducing packaging, re-designing products to deliver the same service with fewer materials, eliminating hazardous production inputs, improving energy and water efficiency, and designing products for easy disassembly.
        Product stewardship originated in Europe, where concerns about landfill capacity resulted in "takeback" requirements, such as the "Green Dot" mandate for packaging.
        There is little prospect of mandates in the U.S., although companies doing business in Europe must comply with European directives. However, product stewardship is beginning to gain attention in the U.S. For local governments, the driver is reducing the costs of managing growing mounds of solid waste. For companies, the driver is tapping an unorthodox business opportunity.
        Xerox, for example, takes back and remanufactures office equipment, saving hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Xerox calls itself the "document company," reflecting its identity as a provider of services instead of stuff.
        In the absence of mandates, industry willingness to consider product stewardship can be driven by the dynamics specific to particular industries. "It's an opportunity to think outside of the box," said David Stitzhal, a Seattle consultant facilitating the Northwest Product Stewardship Council (http://www.govlink.org/nwpsc).
        Carpet manufacturers, for example, are developing takeback and recycling programs. One reason is that the industry faces stiffer competition from other types of floor coverings and is looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage (more below).
        The Northwest Product Stewardship Council is exploring projects for the retail apparel industry, which has prominent companies headquartered in the region. The council is working with Eddie Bauer, Norm Thompson Outfitters, Nordstroms, and Nike, for example.
        The apparel companies had their own reasons for taking a look at product stewardship. Eddie Bauer, for example, responded largely because its corporate parent, Spiegel, is headquartered in Europe, where product stewardship mandates are a fact of life. Eddie Bauer is looking at reusable pallets and increasing the recycled content of product bags.
        Since product stewardship is being left largely to voluntary initiatives in the U.S., the council is trying to build relationships with key sectors in order to find openings for projects that complement business drivers. "We're going with what companies want to do. If we wanted to impose our own agenda, a lot of companies would have told us 'no, this isn't relevant to us.' You need to go in with a flexible approach," Stitzhal said.
        Other council projects include:
        COMPUTERS: A guidebook describing the environmental attributes of computers has been published for purchasing managers. The council also is working with original equipment manufacturers (OEM's) and large-scale corporate buyers to build demand for "green" computers.
        MEDICAL: Planning is underway for a pilot project to recycle "blue wrap," a polypropylene sterilization material. Kimberly Clark, a blue wrap manufacturer, is interested in buying back clean product, which can be used as a feedstock for building materials.
        There are obstacles to widespread adoption of product stewardship, according to Gary Davis, director of the Center for Clean Products and Technologies at the University of Tennessee. (See synopsis of his talk to the President's Council on Sustainable Development, http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/EPR.html.) Obstacles include:
· Disposal costing less than recycling
· Lack of life-cycle cost information
· Less than optimal relationships among value chain players
· Rigid design specifications
· Regulatory structures driving companies to compliance-only strategies.
        Institutionalizing product stewardship will "take a structural sea change, altering the rules of commerce," Stitzhal said.
        Education and relationship-building are keys to incrementally change the thinking that braces current market structures. At the 1996 product stewardship conference held by the President's Council on Sustainable Development, Tom Benson of SC Johnson & Son observed that perseverance in communicating and working with players in the product cycle was critical to overcome barriers to aerosol can recycling.
        To learn about product stewardship experiences of companies doing business in the Northwest, continue reading.
        Spring 2001 edition: Product Stewardship Techniques

Why Thinking Outside The Box Pays
Albertson's pulling in an extra $15 million each year by asking 'why'

        What do 3-year-olds and astute business managers have in common? They ask "why" until they get a satisfactory answer.
        Albertson's, the Boise-based grocery chain, asked "why" many times as it worked with its supply chain to develop a new standard for shipping perishable produce - a modular, recyclable, display-ready produce box to replace waxed corrugated boxes. The new standard allows shipment of fruits and vegetables from farm fields to supermarket produce displays in one box, minimizing produce damage caused by handling. Reduced waste disposal and increased recycling revenues will result in projected benefits of nearly $15 million this year.
        The new box enabled Albertson's to begin shifting to iceless packaging. That eliminates ice damage to vegetables, and the cost of making and shipping ice. Iceless shipping of the 2 million cases of broccoli Albertson's buys each year will save $1.4 million annually from reduced truck trips.
        The waxed corrugated shipping box has been a standard in the grocery business for years. However, reuse and recycling markets for waxed boxes are weak or non-existent. Handling produce results in "shrink" - damaged produce that cannot be sold. In auditing its waste, environmental manager Cynthia Forsch said, Albertson's found that 25-30 percent of its waste was produce-related. Cost reduction was the reason Albertson's asked box suppliers to develop modular corrugated containers.
        Albertson's worked with its produce suppliers to get them to use the new box. Forsch said her strategy has been to communicate how the produce suppliers will benefit from using the new boxes.
        Washington apple growers adopted the change. Facing stiff challenges from imported fruit, they instantly understood the benefits of reducing handling costs.
        But for other commodity suppliers, it hasn't been as easy. "We've always done it that way" was a common reply Forsch heard when she asked why they preferred waxed boxes. For example, Forsch said she had to spend a lot of time with a melon supplier to help him understand that using the new box would help him earn premiums for supplying fruit meeting certain size criteria.
        "Communicate. Find ways to get people to buy in. Find ways to get them to participate," Forsch advises.

CONTACT: Cynthia Forsch, 208-395-6339

Takeback: From the Floor at Milliken ...
Design Trend an Opening for Milliken's Repatterned Carpeting

        Unwanted carpeting is a pain to manage. About 4 billion pounds of it are discarded every year, it's bulky, and materials that go into carpet make recycling challenging.
U.S. manufacturers are trying out a number of solutions for reducing carpet waste.
        Milliken & Company sells Earth Squares, which are carpet tiles that can be taken back, cleaned up, and repatterned. Buying recycled carpet appeals to customers with an environmental ethic, especially in the Northwest. Another attraction is cost - it can be cheaper for commercial customers to send the carpet back to Milliken than to have it hauled to a landfill.
        But a key factor that has helped broaden interest in the product has been new thinking about interior design.
        "Before, carpet was not thought of as an integral part of an overall interior design," said Matt Barr, Milliken's senior territory manager for Alaska, Oregon and Washington. "Buyers wanted something that would fade into the background." Now, carpet is considered an important element of interior design. Repatterning carpeting is a "relatively inexpensive way to add pizazz" to a space, he said.
        Fortunately, Barr said, the company had the technology to take advantage of the market opportunity. "We knew the market was headed that way."
        One of the obstacles to wider penetration of the reclaimed carpeting in the marketplace is creating a reverse supply chain. Ideally, discarded carpet would be returned to Milliken in large chunks, since only 85 percent of the returned material can be re-used. "The reality is that Milliken gets little blocks (of carpet) from smaller sources rather than larger blocks," Barr said.
        It's not common for customers to turn in their carpeting and get the same tiles back after cleaning and re-patterning. Instead, Milliken provides customers with access to a bank of products. Instead of a once-through product headed for a landfill, carpet becomes a renewable resource.
        Earth Square is not yet a profit center, but helps solidify Milliken's brand identity, he said. "The company-wide environmental direction is helping us to sell our products. In that respect, if you're not doing something environmental, you'll fall behind."

CONTACT: Matt Barr, 1-800-241-4826, x8167, matt.barr@milliken.com

Takeback: ...To the Ceiling at Armstrong
Armstrong Says Tile Recycling Is Cheaper Than Landfilling

        It seemed like the entrepreneurial thing to do. When Microsoft asked Sellen Construction to recycle demolition debris from a building project, an Armstrong plant manager in St. Helens, Ore., told Sellen that the facility could recycle ceiling tiles.
        So, off the tiles went. The plant manager took one look at them and realized they were a competitor's product. What now? "We just went ahead and recycled them anyway," and Armstrong's ceiling tile takeback program was born, recalled Mike Fischer, the company's vice president for marketing. Under Armstrong's program, recyclable tiles from any manufacturer will be accepted and recycled into new tiles.
        In marketing the program to contractors, Armstrong points out that recycling tiles can be cheaper than disposing of them. Getting contractors and building owners to change habits, however, has not been easy, Fischer said. Before this year, only about 5 percent of building project owners were receptive to the idea.
        A sweetener was added in 2000: Armstrong will pay for shipping discarded tiles from any point in the continental U.S. That seems to have boosted activity. In the first half of 2000, Armstrong recycled three times as many tiles as it did in 1999. Armstrong's goal is to recycle 10 percent of discarded commercial tiles by 2005.
        Takeback was not an easy sell within the company either, Fischer said. Before St. Helens took the initiative, takeback had been debated internally and rejected. A leading concern was introduction of contaminants into the raw material mix.
        Fischer said, however, that the company culture sees the business value of environmental initiatives. For economic reasons, Armstrong has, for years, incorporated off-spec Armstrong tiles, newsprint, and a steel manufacturing byproduct called mineral wool into its raw material mix.
        Recycling will have put Armstrong ahead of the curve if demolition debris is banned from landfills, he said. "We'd rather have had it figured out ahead of time."

Northwest Tile Recyclers: · Microsoft - Redmond Campus · PacifiCorp - Portland HQ · Northern Life Building - downtown Seattle

CONTACT: Mike Fischer, 717-396-3049

Norm Thompson Outfitters Weaves Product Stewardship into Company Culture
Retailer Phasing in Organic Cotton, Phasing Out PVC

        When Norm Thompson Outfitters began charting a course toward sustainability, it established an in-house advisory board. And one of the key people on that board was a skeptic.
        For corporate sustainability manager Derek Smith, hearing that contrary voice was essential if the company were to move to the next level of being green. "It's key," he said. "My advice to other companies is that you need to do what's necessary to overcome skepticism. You have to know who the opinion leaders are within the company and show that this will work economically."
        Norm Thompson Outfitters, a Hillsboro, Ore. specialty retailer, has long been an innovator in integrating an environmental ethic into its business. The company built a headquarters that was one of the Portland area's early green buildings, with recycled materials, computerized energy management, native plant landscaping, and low-VOC coatings. Every full-time employee has received Natural Step training.
        Now, the company is taking new steps toward sustainability. Smith, who reports directly to the CEO, was hired in 1999 to lead the company's sustainability efforts. He will be accountable for their outcome. With the help of the cross-functional advisory board, Smith pulled together a "cultural integration" plan that lists internal drivers and barriers, and recommends ways to integrate sustainability into everyday work.
        Smith is confident the company will achieve its sustainability goals. "We set it up right, from the get-go. We have both top-level commitment and employees bought into it with the (Natural Step) training, and recognition and accountability for the goals we've set," he said.
        One of the paths Norm Thompson has chosen is to purchase greener raw materials. Over the next five years, the company will phase organic cotton into its garments and phase polyvinyl chloride (PVC) out of its products. Those two steps were chosen because Norm Thompson sees clear environmental benefits. Another is that the company can learn from others such as Patagonia and Nike, which have worked through how-to issues with organic cotton and PVC phaseout, respectively. In return, Norm Thompson is willing to share its primary research in other areas.
        Smith said the company plans to work cooperatively with its suppliers and will point out benefits they can achieve.
        An industry standard Norm Thompson hopes to change is the type of paper used in sales catalogues. Smith aims to show that using paper with 10 percent post-consumer content will not reduce sales. In this effort, the company is working with the Alliance for Environmental Innovation, a project of Environmental Defense and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
        "Partnerships are the way we'll get there," he said. "When the for-profit, non-profit, academic and government communities work together, great things happen."

CONTACT: Derek Smith, 503-614-4402

Satisfying Customers
'Our customers were telling us they hated the planned obsolescence, worried about their waste streams, were concerned about the components we used. So we made a commitment to accept accountability, to help take responsibility for the use of the product, from cradle to grave.'
John DeJong, Xerox
Find out more about Xerox's environmental initiatives at http://www.xerox.com/
go/xrx/about_xerox/
T_ehs.jsp

Satisfied Customers
'They wanted to buy everything I had.'
Andy Shaw, owner of BC sawmill that sold 300,000 board-feet of green certified cedar lumber, earning a 5 percent premium.

What Are Other Carpet Firms Doing?
DuPont
Recycles commercial carpeting into other products, such as auto parts

Shaw Industries
Markets non-PVC backing for different fibers

What Are The Drivers?
1. Cost Reduction
2. Market Strategy
3. Takeback Mandates in Procurement Specifications
4. More Demand for Recycled Materials
Source: "Carpet Take-Back: EPR American Style," Bette K. Fishbein, Environmental Quality Management, Autumn 2000 edition

Boeing Takes Dispersed Approach
'...There is no distinct environmental product stewardship system at Boeing. Instead, the practice of environmental stewardship is distributed throughout the company ... An advantage of a dispersed stewardship approach is that it enables the company to draw on the creativity of numerous organizations, and it avoids getting trapped in a "one-right-way" syndrome. In fact Boeing's environmental stewardship seldom involves only Boeing. Most instances of stewardship are cooperative enterprises involving Boeing, its customers and other stakeholders'
Source: "Environmentally Conscious Product Stewardship at the Boeing Company," Lawrence Weinberg, Corporate Environmental Strategy, Volume 6, No. 3

Next Edition
In the spring 2001 edition, we'll explore techniques of product stewardship, including:
   1. Life cycle assessment
   2. Design for environment
   3. Green purchasing
   4. Servicizing
   5. Takeback

P2Rx Wins Hammer Award
        The Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx) has won the National Performance Review's Hammer Award.
        P2Rx is a network of nine regional pollution prevention information centers, including PPRC, that provides accessible, high quality technical information to help businesses reduce waste and improve efficiency. P2Rx is promoting electronic formats for quick information sharing, and building new distribution channels for P2 technical information.
        The Hammer Award is given to federal employees and others who have contributed to making government work more effectively and cost less.
        For more information about P2Rx, visit http://www.p2rx.org.

Business, Environment Forum
        The Forum for Business and the Environment is a series of breakfast meetings that brings together business leaders and environmentalists to discuss current environmental and economic issues in Oregon. The series is sponsored by the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC).
        Issues for the 2000-2001 series include: Governor John Kitzhaber's Sustainability Order, Beyond Recycling: "Zero Waste" Strategies, Zero Tolerance for Toxics, and Global Climate Change and Oregon's Economy.
        Events will be held in Salem, Eugene and Portland. Cost is $25 per meeting, including breakfast.
        To find out more, visit http://www.orcouncil.org/forum/forum.html or contact Cheryl at 503-222-1963.

Clean Energy Conference
        Farmers, farm organizations, rural electric utility representatives, and public agencies can explore economic opportunities to boost income and create jobs by attending the Harvesting Clean Energy for Rural Development conference Jan. 29-30, 2001 in Spokane.
        Conference fees are $175 for professionals and $75 for individuals ($25 discount for registration before Jan. 7). To find out more, visit the conference web site at http://capps.wsu.edu/
programs/CleanEnergy01.htm. Or, contact Rhys Roth at Climate Solutions, 360-352-1763 or rhys@climatesolutions.org.

Computer Takeback Programs
        Programs are getting underway to take back old computers for either reuse or appropriate disposal. Here's a list of some recently initiated programs:

King County Solid Waste Division's Computer Recovery Project: A network of computer repair and resale shops, local nonprofit groups, computer retailers and government agencies has teamed up to offer locations for donating, upgrading or recycling used computer equipment. Find out more at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/swd/CRP.htm.

FreeGeek: In the Portland area, this non-profit organization accepts working and non-working equipment for reuse and/or recycling. Find out more at http://www.freegeek.org.

IBM PC Recycling Service: Consumers and small businesses can recycle any manufacturer's PCs and peripherals. Cost per system is $29.99, which includes shipping. Call 1-888-SHOP-IBM or visit http://www.ibm.com/environment.

Gateway, Inc. Rebate Program: This computer manufacturer offers up to $50 for people who donate or recycle their old computers after they buy a new one from Gateway. Learn more about the program at http://www.gateway.com/recycle.

Medical Green Purchasing
        Hospitals, laboratories, and others in the medical sector can find out about the benefits and how-to's of environmentally preferred purchasing by taking a look at the notes of a green purchasing seminar held by the Medical Industry Waste Prevention Roundtable.
        Find out more at http://dnr.metrokc.gov/swd/bizprog/
waste_pre/MIRTsem5.htm.

New Faces Come on Board at PPRC

        The Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center has some new faces.
        Blair Henry, a Seattle business attorney, mediator, and president of the Northwest Council on Climate Change, has started work as the new executive director. He succeeds Madeline Sten, PPRC's founding executive director. With Henry's energy and guidance, PPRC is ready to build on the solid foundation laid by Sten, increase its visibility, and expand into exciting new areas.
        Henry and Sten are working together to effect a smooth transition. Sten now holds the title of special assistant to the executive director.
        PPRC also has a new technical lead, Dr. L.B. Sandy Rock, MD, MPH. Dr. Rock brings an extensive, diverse background to this position. He is a public and environmental health physician with experience in risk communication. From 1995 until earlier this year, he was the public health physician for the Washington Department of Health's Hanford Health Information Network.
        We have one more new face to tell you about. Ana Simon has come on as PPRC's business manager. She is responsible for managing PPRC's finances.