The GLRPPR Blog

Happy Pollution Prevention (P2) Week! Celebrated during the third full week of September every year, P2 Week is a time to reflect on what you and/or your organization are currently doing to promote pollution prevention and sustainability, as well as a prime time to consider what more you could be doing. Check out the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable (NPPR) web site and the US EPA site for more information on activities taking place this week throughout the country; tips for increasing energy efficiency, reducing waste and sustainable practices; and news. (And of course, you can always browse through the online resources on the GLRPPR and P2Rx web sites for more information and best practices specific to your sector.)

In the Great Lakes region, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) and the Indiana Partners for Pollution Prevention (P4P2) will be hosting the 14th Annual Pollution Prevention Conference and Trade Show on Thursday, September 22.

GLRPPR’s sister Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx) center, the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) is hosting a 20th anniversary banquet for its regional P2 roundtable during P2 Week.  Highlights will include a presentation by Dara O’Rourke, founder of the Good Guide, and former PPRC staff member.

And to kick off P2 Week, P2Rx has announced the launch of the National Sustainable Lodging Network, an online community of sustainable hospitality practitioners and an information clearinghouse to support the work of this community, found online at www.SustainableLodging.org. This site brings lodging operations together with federal, state, local, and tribal sustainable hospitality programs, including environmental agencies, tourism boards, and lodging associations. The goals for the site are to provide forums for sustainable hospitality practitioners to share information on practices and challenges; elevate sustainable hospitality programs and the facilities that participate in them; increase the adoption of sustainable hospitality practices nationwide; and foster innovation in sustainable lodging through the exchange of ideas.

If your organization or community is hosting a special event this week, tell us about it in the comments section of this post.

If you’re still not sure what all the fuss is about related to social networking, and think that tweets are just for the birds, you may want to participate in an upcoming webinar hosted by the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association (NEWMOA), entitled How P2 Assistance Providers Can Effectively Use Social Media. NEWMOA, like the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), is one of eight regional pollution prevention information centers throughout the U.S. that collectively comprise the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx).

The webinar, scheduled for this Thursday, September 15 at 1 PM Central, will explain how the use of social media and web 2.0 technologies can bring value to pollution prevention and assistance programs. The presenters will also discuss their experiences using different social media applications to reach a variety of audiences, and share tips on what has been successful. One of the presenters will be GLRPPR’s own Laura Barnes, who will discuss “How to Get Started Using Social Media.” Other speakers include Andy Bray of NEWMOA and Sarah Haas from the Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP).

Social media can be a powerful tool for staying informed, networking (especially in these days of limited budgets and frowned upon travel requests), and spreading the word about your products and services without spending a great deal of money.  After participating in the webinar, I encourage you to make use of GLRPPR’s Twitter and Facebook pages. These pages incorporate items from various GLRPPR RSS feeds, such as news items, new additions to our Sector Resources, and blog posts (like this one!), so they can be a great way to catch the best highlights from many of our services in one place.  These pages also feature items re-posted (“re-tweeted”) by myself and Laura from the various other Twitter, Facebook and news sources that we monitor — our recommendations for content that you would find interesting and useful. They also offer an opportunity to comment on posts (Facebook) or use direct messages and “mentions” (Twitter), thus providing an online forum for discussion of resources. And through the use of conventions (like Twitter’s #FollowFriday and #EcoMonday) and lists of friends and followers, you can learn about other people and organizations engaged in work and interests similar to yours.

So be sure to register for the webinar on NEWMOA’s web site. We’d love for you to be one of our tweeps!

P2TagTeam is collaborative tagging effort on Delicious, spearheaded by the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx), to encourage P2 professionals to share the resources they find and bookmark. If you locate a resource that you think would be helpful to other P2 professionals, simply add P2TagTeam tag in the Tags field when you add the bookmark to Delicious. For more background on P2Tag Team, Delicious, and social bookmarking, see P2 is Delicious, my earlier post on the topic.

As an example of the kinds of resources being identified, here are the ten most recent bookmarks tagged for P2TagTeam. You can view the entire collection at http://www.delicious.com/tag/p2tagteam.

• Green Vehicle Guide | US EPA
• Ground-Level Ozone Reduction Links – Programs & Outreach – LouisvilleKy.gov
• B.Y.O.B (Bring Your Own Bag)
  380,000,000,000 plastic bags are consumed each year in America, 1% of them get recycled. Princeton SECN students explores the world of plastic, and non-plastic bags. Learn how bringing your own bag, can help the environment.
• ScienceCinema, the source for Department of Energy (DOE) multimedia – Home Page
  ScienceCinema utilizes audio indexing and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Research, allowing you to search for specific words and phrases spoken within video files. You can then easily access the exact point in the video where the words were spoken by the presenter. The videos in ScienceCinema highlight DOE’s scientific research.
• Don’t be left in the dark.: Safely clean up and recycle CFLs.
  EPA brochure on cleaning up broken compact fluorescent light bulbs.
• The Green Grid
  The Green Grid is a global consortium of IT companies and professionals seeking to improve energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems around the globe. The organization seeks to unite global industry efforts to standardize on a common set of metrics, processes, methods and new technologies to further its common goals.
• State of Green Business Report 2011
  The fourth annual edition of our State of Green Business report continues our efforts to measure the environmental impacts of the emerging green economy. We document how well — or poorly — companies are improving their environmental performance despite the challenges posed by the Great Recession, and begin to note promising signs for a sea change in corporate sustainability efforts. The free, downloadable report measures the progress of U.S. business and the economy from an environmental perspective, and highlights key trends in corporate culture in regard to the environment.
• Check Your Paper
  The Check Your Paper scheme is WWF’s global benchmarking tool for responsible producers and buyers of paper products. It also provides a virtual meeting place for organisations who want to act sustainably and transparently when producing or buying paper products.
• National Yellow Pages Opt Out Site
  Opt out of yellow pages, white pages & phone books delivery.
• Thermal Paper & BPA — Trash or Recycle?
  Thermal paper receipts contain BPA. Is it a good idea to recycle thermal receipts?

For more information on P2TagTeam, visit the P2Rx web site or contact Laura Barnes (lbarnes@istc.illinois.edu).

Over the past eighteen months, GLRPPR staff have been converting the topic hubs they’ve developed into LibGuides. To date, the following Topic Hubs have been converted:

• Auto Salvage-Great Lakes Region
• Energy Efficient Schools and Students
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in Schools
• Mercury — Schools
• Technology Diffusion

LibGuides is a web 2.0 platform that libraries use to create topical guides to help their users find information. It combines the best features of social networks, wikis, and blogs into one package. Librarians can incorporate RSS feeds, video, web links, bibliographic citations, search boxes, and other finding aids. LibGuides also allows librarians to create polls and allows users to comment on specific resources and tools within each guide.

Users can also sign up to receive e-mail alerts when new content is published, either for particular topics/keywords or for a specific librarian (in this case, GLRPPR). In addition, the converted topic hubs live in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s LibGuides space, which means that they’re more visible to the UIUC community, particularly students.

For a list of GLRPPR guides, visit the GLRPPR profile page on the UIUC Library’s LibGuides web site. You can also see the list of guides I’ve created on my profile page. Please take a look at the converted topic hubs and give us your feedback about the new format.

Recently, GLRPPR‘s Laura Barnes participated in a webinar hosted by our sister Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx) Center, the Western Sustainability & Pollution Prevention Network (WSPPN). Laura co-presented with Rick Yoder from another of the P2Rx Centers, the Pollution Prevention Regional Information Center (P2RIC). Donna Walden of WSPPN moderated the session.

Rick and Laura described many social networking and bookmarking tools (such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.), why using these tools has become important for those in pollution prevention and sustainability organizations, how these tools can be great sources of information as well as marketing, and also provided some great tips for using these technologies. The audience asked lots of questions, and overall the webinar was very informative even for those of us who already regularly use Web 2.0 tools.

If you missed the session, or attended and would like copies of the presentations, these are now available for download on the WSPPN webinar page (look for “Web 2.0 Social Media Webinar, Recorded on July 28, 2010″).

Thanks to WSPPN, and particularly to Donna Walden, for making this webinar possible.

The Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) has recently released a new Sector Resource on Light Pollution.

The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) defines light pollution as “any adverse effect of artificial light, including sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter, decreased visibility at night, and energy waste.”

Click here to read the rest of the article

The Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) recently released the Climate Change Topic Hub™, a peer-reviewed, information-packed online resource geared toward small- to medium-sized businesses and industrial sectors that offers an extensive list of pollution prevention opportunities involving process modification, material substitution, and new technology.

Click here to read the rest of the article

Over on the Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) blog, Aida Williams provides an update on three new state e-waste laws that have recently passed in Vermont, South Carolina and New York.

The SEI has also produced a new resource comparing and contrasting e-waste laws, the products covered within the laws, whether disposal bans are involved, etc. Check it out online or download the chart in PDF format.

The following is a guest post by Anne Less, Knowledge Center Specialist for the U.S. Green Building Council. For more information about the UGBC’s Knowledge Center, as well as to search their catalog (available on Library Thing), visit http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2159.

In order to serve the ever-growing professional development needs of the green building community, over the past year, the USGBC Knowledge Exchange team has collected and cataloged over 400 free digital resources that relate to green building.  The USGBC Resource Catalog includes a wide variety of resources on green building topics, including energy efficiency, materials, affordable housing, best practices, business cases, etc.  This collection, which is limited to free, educational, non-promotional resources, aims to inspire a commitment to lifelong learning and sustainable building practices and behaviors.

The USGBC Resource Catalog can be found at http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2175.

Content suggestions are always welcome!  To recommend an item for the Resource Catalog, please email KnowX@usgbc.org.

Energy & Materials Flow & Cost Tracker (EMFACT)

NEWMOA and the Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) have developed a materials use and profitability software tool, called Energy & Materials Flow & Cost Tracker (EMFACT) and recently made it available online free for download. Please check it out. We are currently seeking opportunities to conduct training workshops on EMFACT for small and medium-sized manufacturers, regulatory program staff, and/or technical assistance providers and consultants. This training could be in the form of a webinar, a half day or full day in-person workshop, or an in-person presentation at a conference or workshop. Please send an email to Terri Goldberg if you are interested in exploring such opportunities. NEWMOA has funding to support this training.

Here’s more on what EMFACT is -

EMFACT is designed to be used within small and medium-sized companies for systematically tracking materials and energy use; releases, discharges, and wastes; and associated costs in ways that can create value for their business. The tool can provide a comprehensive picture of resource use and its relation to production and planning that will help improve both business and environmental performance. We have been hearing from users that EMFACT™ can provide critical support for pollution prevention efforts within firms and for technical assistance providers and consultants that are working with firms.

EMFACT’s benefits to its users are:

• Easy navigation and data management
• Connecting material inputs and all outputs, including products, wastes, and other environmental releases to estimate mass balances and flows
• Effective tracking of all material inputs, including chemicals, commodities, and fuels, and their associated costs
• Effective tracking of all wastes, wastewater discharges, and air emissions
• Automated reminders and notices about upcoming reporting and other deadlines
• Automated reports on materials use efficiency and environmental releases
• Easy transfer of data to spreadsheets for further analysis and reports

EMFACT was funded by a grant from the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development.

Download EMFACT for Free at: http://www.newmoa.org/prevention/emfact/.