Filling up the gas tank for the Memorial Day weekend getaway serves as a powerful (and painful) reminder of how much commodity prices have soared in recent months. The Waste Equipment Equipment Technology Association (WASTEC) has produced a three-page “issue bulletin” that summarizes the trends and looks at the effects on both manufacturers and haulers. To download a copy of the bulletin, visit www.wastec.org and click on the “WASTEC Issues Bulletin on Materials Cost Increases” link on the right-hand side of the page.

And from all of us here at Waste Age, have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend.

Everyone more or less concedes that phone books have long outlived their usefulness. And yet they WILL NOT GO AWAY. A great (and highly amusing) article published today in Slate looks at some of consequences of continuing to produce a massive stack of paper that almost nobody uses.

Of particular interest:

That waste is a truly weighty issue. In Portland, Ore., alone this year, the Dex directories tipped the scales at 10.5 pounds per pair, consumed the equivalent of 49,779 trees, and could be stacked nearly 12 miles high into the stratosphere. And that’s just one of several directories that Portlanders receive. On a national level, the figures become mind-boggling. If we assign the not-terribly-scientific figure of just more than three pounds to the average directory, then the 615 million volumes produced last year come out to 1 million tons of phone books. Still, the Yellow Pages Association claims that phone books produce only 0.3 percent of the household waste stream—while “newspapers, in comparison, represent 4.9%.” Alas, customers ask for newspapers, and they do offer an opt-out—it’s called canceling your subscription.

It doesn’t help that the phone book industry’s history of recycling has been … well, nothing to call home about. NYNEX, for instance, once worked with wastepaper merchants to recover about half of all directories but gave up in 1959, with the onset of throwaway consumerism. After New York’s attorney general inquired about recycling plans in 1971, NYNEX responded that it was looking into the matter. They must have looked very hard, since they didn’t start again for another 19 years. Even today, phone books, with their bindings and low-grade paper, make a tough sell for recycling plants, and many areas lack substantive recycling options.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking phone book fort.

Slogan seen on a roll-off truck I was stuck behind during this morning’s commute:

“Your satisfaction guaranteed or double your trash back!”

You may have read last week’s headlines about the recall of 143 million pounds of beef marked unfit for human consumption, the largest beef recall in U.S. history.

So what’s going to happen to all of that dodgy meat? According to the New York Times, New Jersey schools obtained 143,000 pounds of beef from the offending processor. Much of it will be sent directly to the state’s landfills and incinerators:

Under federal guidelines, any school that has more than 50 cases of the beef must take them to a landfill or incinerator for disposal, in the presence of a local health department representative or other qualified official. Schools that have less can dispose of the beef on their own property, so long as there are witnesses like a school food service director. Schools have until Tuesday to report to state agriculture officials how much they have in their inventory.

It seems to me that New Jersey officials are missing a once-in-a-lifetime Guinness opportunity. All they’d have to do before burying and incinerating the meat is wrap it in foil and they’d have the world’s largest Silver Turtle. It might also be prudent to skip any upcoming BBQs, potlucks, or PTA suppers hosted by your local elementary school.

A New York Times article published earlier this month discusses Waste Management’s targeted efforts to improve its public image by advertising the company’s “green” initiatives. These efforts include setting aside wildlife habitat (and noting it in ads), launching a new Web site, and even hosting an interactive exhibit at Disney’s Epcot Center.

The article highlights a significant shift in the company’s advertising strategy, broadening the appeal from a traditional focus on “influencers” in a position to contract with the company to plying the general public:

“The Internet still reaches our target audience of influencers, but now our message is accessible to everyone,” [said Brooke B. Farrell, a vice president of Waste Management’s advertising agency]. That is important, [Waste Management CEO David P.] Steiner said, because “our goal is no longer just to educate, but to also create a preference for our company over our rivals.”

Is this public appeal likely to benefit only large waste firms like WM, or could it be an effective strategy for all waste handlers? Or is it simply a shrewd attempt to capitalize on the nation’s green mood?

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Republic Services has announced that the firm will, as allowed under the Security and Exchange Commission’s new “Notice and Access Rule,” make proxy materials available to shareholders online. Instead of mailing the materials to shareholders, the company will send its stockholders a “Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials.” Republic will be required to send a hard copy set of the materials to any shareholder who requests one.

“At Republic Services Inc., ‘eco’ stands for both ecology, as in the enviroment, and economy, as in the financial bottom line,” said Tod Holmes, senior vice president and chief financial officer of the company. “By using the electronic financial filings, Republic will reduce our hard-copy printing of proxy materials by 75 percent, from 36,000 copies to approximately 9,000 copies reducing paper and printing costs.” The firm estimates it will save about 3 million pieces of paper a year.

The non-profit organization American Forests estimates that eliminating the mailing of 300 million proxy material packages would save 800,000 trees each year from being cut down, reduce fossil fuel consumption by about 500,000 gallons annually by eliminating the need to transport the proxy materials, prevent 100,000 tons of paper from going to the nation’s landfills each year, and eliminate 380,000 tons of greenhouse gases produced in the paper manufacturing process.

In a recent Slate article, Brendan I. Koerner seeks to promote the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs by assuaging fears about their mercury content. According to Koerner, the infinitesimal amount of mercury in each bulb is harmless if they are handled properly. And, he goes on to say, any environmental risk is small when compared to the amount of mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants struggling to illuminate all of those incandescent bulbs. I agree with his point. Moreover, I think that we’re still early enough in the CFL lifespan to train consumers to recycle them properly (Koerner agrees that “thousands upon thousands of broken bulbs in a garbage dump could be seriously bad news”). Right now, that means taking them to an IKEA store, a specialty recycler, or mailing them, but Koerner insists more retail chains will soon accept the bulbs.

Meanwhile, Koerner spends 90 percent of his article talking about mercury and only briefly touches on what is, for most people I know, the main knock against CFLs: The horrid, unnatural light they cast. In defense, he cites a 2007 Popular Mechanics article that tested a range of CFLs. It’s all very scientific, employing chromameters and double-blind tests, ultimately declaring the light cast by CFLs “superior.” I would counter with this January 2008 New York Times article that simply involved people looking at lamps and was far less impressed with the light cast by all but a few CFLs.

In addition to conserving energy, CFLs could help remove millions of incandescent bulbs from the waste stream. I am a proponent of their adoption and use several in my home right now. But there are places where they work and places where they don’t, due to the light they cast or actual incompatibility (most don’t work with dimmer switches, for example). The suggestion that every bulb in the home should be swapped out immediately seems disingenuous. I suspect this will be a gradual transition rather than a wholesale one for most consumers.

What do you think?

I recently stumbled across another example of one of the stranger Internet fads of late: trash blogs. This was a phenomenon Deanna Hart covered in Waste Age back in July.The point seems to be to document one’s personal disposal habits over a set period of time. In a popular variation, the person is also required to carry everything they throw away around with them for one or two weeks. While I find this practice mildly interesting, I wonder what benefit we the readers are supposed to receive when it is clearly the author who has the most to learn. To cite “Gabby” in the example above:

“Turns out, out of an entire bag of about a day and a half worth of trash, over 90-percent of it (weight-wise) could be either recycled or composted. I never realized how much recyclables are worth either. Thinking back, my recycling habits are PRETTY BAD.”

And after reading her blog, I would agree. Her recycling habits are atrocious. But how does that help me, other than helping me feel mildly superior to this recycling laggard?

Oh what the heck. So far today I:

- Rinsed and recycled a glass bottle that held peach nectar.

- Recycled a cardboard pasta box from dinner last night.

- Threw away a coffee nip wrapper.

- Recycled three sheets of office paper, a Target receipt (torn up), three credit card offers (torn up), and two catalogs.

Are you fascinated yet?

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden is turning to an energy source that it should never run out of: animal dung. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “In about two years, when the plan is fully implemented, the elephant and giraffe houses will be heated, cooled and lit by animal waste converted to energy. At least two other zoos - Denver and Dallas - are in the beginning stages of similar projects.” Zoo officials benefits of the program will include significantly reduced energy expenses and increased landfill diversion.

Duke Energy and the Ohio Department of Development currently are conducting a feasibility study to see how much energy can be produced from the waste, the paper says. Results are due in the spring.

“We have four elephants weighing more than 37,000 pounds, and they produce 800 pounds of waste a day,” Mark Fisher, senior director of facilities and planning for the zoo, told the Enquirer. “That’s at least 20 kw (kilowatts) and enough to heat the elephant house and maybe giraffe house, too (on a daily basis). Right now, we pay Rumpke to haul the waste away, so there’s another savings and another plus because we’re diverting it from a landfill.”

As facilities and communities strive to increase landfill diversion, animal waste, believe it or not, could very well become a diversion target. About two years ago, I wrote about a similar program launched by San Francisco and Norcal Waste Systems.